You’re Racist If You’re Against Spending Money We Don’t Have?

You're Racist If You're Against Spending Money We Don't Have?
And other fiscally idiotic and otherwise idiotic moves? According to Charles Blow you are.

Oh, and P.S. You also must be a horrible person if you believe in enforcing our immigration laws instead of rewarding those who break them with free school and medical care ("free" because they're paid for by U.S. taxpayers).

Blow writes in The New York Times:

President Obama and what he represents has jolted extremists into the present and forced them to confront the future. And it scares them.

I'm not an "extremist," and neither are the people I know and read who are scared for what this country is becoming.

A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill through the House. The bill's most visible and vocal proponents included a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It's enough to make a good old boy go crazy.

I don't know any of those (good old boys, that is) but I know what a mess government makes out of anything that it runs, and I think Nobel-winning economist Gary Becker's suggestions for actually reforming health care (as opposed to "reforming" it), make sense.

Blow continues to play identity politics:

Hence their anger and frustration, which is playing out in ways large and small. There is the current spattering of threats and violence, but there also is the run on guns and the explosive growth of nefarious antigovernment and anti-immigrant groups. In fact, according to a report entitled "Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism" recently released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, "nativist extremist" groups that confront and harass suspected immigrants have increased nearly 80 percent since President Obama took office, and antigovernment "patriot" groups more than tripled over that period.

Politically, this frustration is epitomized by the Tea Party movement. It may have some legitimate concerns (taxation, the role of government, etc.), but its message is lost in the madness. And now the anemic Republican establishment, covetous of the Tea Party's passion, is moving to absorb it, not admonish it. Instead of jettisoning the radical language, rabid bigotry and rising violence, the Republicans justify it. (They don't want to refute it as much as funnel it.)

...You may want "your country back," but you can't have it. That sound you hear is the relentless, irrepressible march of change. Welcome to America: The Remix.

Newsflash: Everybody opposed to Obama isn't some hater-extremist, just as not every Democrat is some far-left Alinsky-worshipper.

Me? I'm a fiscally conservative, free minds/free markets libertarian, anti-Iraq war, pro gay-rights/gay marriage, and a "personal responsibilitarian."

I voted for Bob Barr, who I generally refer to as "the execrable loser Bob Barr," but I preferred him to Obama and the old man running on the Republican side, and Obama was taking California anyway.

Oh, and I think it's good to be against the government, because I don't see government as the solution to everything, but much of the problem. (Whoops, does that make me a hater, or merely, I dunno, "classically liberal"?)

I liked Florida55's comment below Blow's piece. An excerpt:

The current schism in this country has nothing to do with racism, demographics, or education. We have a fundamental disagreement as to the role of government with respect to the individual. One group supports limited government believing government should promote equality of opportunity, not equality of result. Generally this group believes in a small hands off government that is limited to the express powers delineated in the Constitution. This group opposed the recent health care bill due to a fundamental philosophy that health care is an individual responsibility and not a government imposed service.

The other group believe government should intervene in the private sector and lives of individuals to pursue what are considered by that group to be societal needs or goals with the ultimate end of ending inequalities or promoting what that group perceives is the common good. The recent health care bill is an example as is climate change legislation which seeks to limit or tax the activities of companies and individuals.

These two fundamental philosophies are currently irreconcilable. Essentially the "conservatives" don't want government intervention in their lives and are prepared to accept the consequences of living without a government safety net. They believe they should be entitled to the fruits of their labors.

The "liberal" philosophy has a vision of the common good determined through the political process. The majority determines what is right for all and the majority can determine how much of the fruits of the individual's labor can be taken from the individual to redistribute or use for the common good. In addition, the state can limit activities of individuals and take property of individuals for the common good.