With less than a month until general election it is becoming quite clear that the stakes haven't been higher since probably 1932--the fateful year that pitted laiseez-faire government against sensible state intervention and regulation. Within the last twenty years Ameicans have seen the privitization of exorbitant amounts of wealth and the socialization of corporate loss as exemplified by Bush's $700 billion bailout. Since the Reagan Revolution of 1980, the federal government has freely allowed big business to engage in some of the most questionable and dangerous behavior that foresakes the consumer interest. Adequate regulation has eroded and now government steps in only under the most dire of circumstances. In the name of economic growth and innovation conservatives have completely ignored the growing inequality that riddles the United States. The reported U.S. Gini coefficient in 2006 was 47--the highest ever reported--and a number that puts the U.S. in the company of the banana republics of Central America. However, as the middle-class quietly dissappears conservatives such as Dinesh D'Souza loudly proclaim that these are America's golden years--wealthy and affluence abound.

 

Ultimately the neoconservative movement--born out of the 1980s--has completely hijacked the Right and divorced it from reality. More ideological than ever, conservatives everywhere continue to push for an agenda of tax cuts and small government at the same time that millions everywhere struggle to stay afloat. It is safe to say that government is not the problem rather government is largely the answer to the problem--a statement that would make Reaganites shudder. True to their leader, the Friedman Cult continues to insist that markets not only always work, but are the only mechanism that will work while ignoring any benefits that government intervention can and will bring. Of course market works most of the time, but let us not blind ourselves with dogmatic ideological foolishness that prevents us from taking realistic approaches to today's momentous issues.

 

While Republicans have been afloat in a fairy land of milk-and-honey those who are subject to reality have faced the pains of a government that has largely forsaken its duties. As the election nears it is clear that the Ameican electorate is divided into two camps--believers and thinkers. While believers are not subject to the laws of rationality, thinkers tirelessly assure those most disenfranchised that they have not been forgotten. McCain believes another Bush-like presidency is just what the doctor ordered for America. Sadly, for believers thinking is no option.