Meltdown

Allahpundit:

The Democrats’ strategy, led by President Present, is to sit back and let the tea party bleed some of its popularity on an aggressive “tough choices” agenda and the occasional serendipitous (for Democrats) political overreach. That way, when the real battle finally begins over entitlements, independents will be more suspicious of the tea-party brand than they were before. It’s a gutless, cynical, irresponsible strategy given the magnitude of our spending problem, but it’s not stupid. It may have worked to some extent here.

Let me just say this - if the American electorate lets them get away with this gutless, cynical, irresponsible strategy, then that electorate deserves the economic catastrophe that results.

I haven't read any Heinlein, but I love this quote, and it's been circulating a lot recently. For good reason.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck."

In many ways, the worst excesses of Rand's looters are being played out before our eyes...