On Feb 17, 2010, at 3:50 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 2:31 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Feb 17, 2010, at 3:09 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
>>
>>> The U.S. welfare state was always tiny and is now tinier, not to
>>> mention largely ineffective and highly regulative. Let it die,
>>> people.
>>
>> Are you dependent on Medicare, Social Security, or Food Stamps?
>
> Well, I was trying to be a little provocative. I knew you'd bite ;-)
>
> I was also objecting to the clucking of tongues, the (conservative)
> attachment to some abstraction called the welfare state, and acting as
> if things were already decided because the NYT/Wall Street declared
> austerity was in order.
Well, given the contours of American politics, it probably is as good as over, but you never know. But still, millions of people would be miserable without the things I listed. Hacking at them will increase human misery. That's not a conservative abstraction.