McIrritants

Question: In the current United State political two-party environment, if the Republican Party does not support free-market capitalism, which party will?

Answer: Well, you know it won't be the Democratic Party, so the answer is c) none of the above.


On that topic, we have not quite the full recommended dose of Mark Steyn, but hey - a little's always better than none...

I'm getting a bit tired of Senator McCain's anti-business shtick. The line about serving "for patriotism, not for profit" is pathetic. America spends more on its military than the next 35-40 biggest military spenders on the planet combined: Where does he think the money for that comes from?

As for his line about "some greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished", aside from being almost entirely irrelevant to the subject under discussion (the subprime "crisis"), it reveals, I think, one of the most unpleasant aspects of McCain. For a so-called "maverick", he's very comfortable with the application of Big Government power, and the assumption of Big Government virtue. Undoubtedly there are "greedy people on Wall Street". Why should he and his chums be the ones who decide whether they need to be "punished"? If greed is to be punishable, why doesn't he start with a pilot program applied to, say, the United States Senate and report back to us in five years how that's going?

I'm not going to be holding my breath on that one, I think...