They hate it when you call them on their hypocrisy
Yesterday I posted a tweet that went pretty viral on Twitter and on Facebook. Anne worked her magic and, by the afternoon, it had become this meme which went even more viral:
Last evening, journalist E.J. Dionne retweeeted it (and again this morning). This caused all manner of self-described libertarians and other conservatives to leap up to say this didn’t make any sense, they didn’t get the joke, they don’t think all government is socialism, etc., etc. Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds feigned a lack of comprehension:
The faux outrage that I dare to mischaracterize their political views was comical. These are the same people that call for disaster aid to be withheld unless corresponding budget cuts are found. The same people who sign up for Grover Norquist’s “Government Bathtub Drowning Society” and sign his tax pledge ensuring that vital services are cut at nearly every level of government.
I would encourage these self-described patriots to come up to Michigan and drive on our roads. I know many people, myself included, who have had car damage as a result of hitting enormous potholes on our fine road system – damage that’s cost hundreds of dollars to repair. Meanwhile, the tea party legislators in our state House and Senate are completely incapable of coming up with any funding for road and bridge repair. That would require revenues that they don’t have after giving huge tax breaks to corporations while amassing a budget surplus.
This same group of legislators decries the “socialist” Affordable Care Act, an historic effort to “promote the general welfare” by ensuring that more Americans can get health care without going bankrupt and without forcing the rest of us to pay for it through inflated health care costs.
These conservatives and libertarians and tea partiers can all act outraged when they get their noses tweaked for their hypocrisy but the reality is that they DO see much of government spending as “socialist”. We see it on their signs. We see it on their websites. We hear their rhetoric all over the internet about “small government” and “free market” solutions. They love their plowed and salted streets but they don’t want to pay for it and they will demonize the union workers who do the hard work on their behalf as overpaid leeches on society.
But if that road isn’t plowed on schedule, you can be sure these “patriots” will be first in line to complain about the inefficiencies of government, even as they hold its head under water in the bathtub.
UPDATE: Via my pal Amy Hunter:
.@Eclectablog Bloom Co. comic strip from 25 yrs-ago pic.twitter.com/4DoThY0b1R
— Amy Hunter (@amy10506) January 6, 2014
(Larger version of the comic HERE.)
