Andrew Sullivan: Socialist Moonbat of the Week

The sad thing about Andrew is he used to make some sense. Then some time around 2004 or thereabouts he had a frontal lobotomy and now sounds like a bleating leftist every time he opens his mouth. His latest brainfart on the teaparty movement has earned him the title of Socialist Moonbat of the Week:

I spent the better part of an hour earlier today scanning the various sites and blogs to try and understand what specifically the Fox-Pajamas tea parties are about. Having absorbed about as much of the literature as I can, I have to say I'm still befuddled.
Option 1: It's a protest of the bank bailouts orchestrated by Bush and now Obama. But surely these tea-partiers understand what would happen if we didn't bail the banks out. Are they advocating letting major banks fail? Or are they advocating a Krugman-style government take-over? No idea.

I am advocating letting major banks fail. The FDIC, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve and the Comptroller of the Currency, could have seen to an orderly liquidation of the failed banks. Those banks that did not have enough assets to satisfy their depositor accounts up to a maximum of $100,000 per depositor would have the difference made up by the FDIC.

This would have led to some temporary chaos in the financial markets. But in a free enterprise system, things will quickly sort themselves out. The function of the financial system is to bring two groups of people and organizations together: (1) Those who save and invest, and (2) Those business and consumers that want to borrow or seek equity investments. The two groups will find each other, unless government does something to try to prevent them.

There is nothing sacred about Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, et al. It is much better to allow these companies to go out of business when they make poor decisions, rather than allow them to keep making poor decisions.

Option 2: It's a protest against tax hikes. But there have barely been any! Are they arguing that the planned return to Clinton era marginal rates is an outrage worthy of the colonists ... only months after an election in which the winning candidate ran on exactly that platform? Is that postponed future increase so radical that it demands a protest modeled on one in which people were taxed with no representation at all? Truly bizarre. And when you consider that we have gone through a very long period of relatively low taxation for the very successful, and a very long period in which their wealth has soared, and after an election where a majority of such people voted for Obama, the extremism seems unrelated to anything substantive underneath it.

There have hardly been any new taxes, but there has been a massive increase in government spending. In the long run this can only be financed with an increase in taxes, or, much worse, an increase in inflation.

Anyone who wants to pay higher taxes can send their personal check to the federal government. Those of us who advocate a limited government would like you to please stop sticking guns in our faces and forcing us to pay more tax.

Option 3: It's a protest against illegal immigration. Ok, so why the tea? Weren't all the original tea-partiers illegal immigrants?

The original tea-partiers were not illegal immigrants, nor immigrants at all. They were people who had moved from one part of Great Britain to another part.

Option 4: It's a protest against government debt. Yay! I will leave aside the somewhat awkward fact that Fox News and Pajamas Media barely covered the massive debt racked up by the Republicans during a period of economic growth. Instead, I'll proffer a simple point: If the tea-partiers are concerned about debt and concerned about taxes, one presumes they favor drastic spending cuts. But what are the tea-partiers proposing to do to Medicare, Medicaid, and social security?

Many of us were quite unhappy with Bush and the formerly Republican congress for excessive spending. But the amount they spent is miniscule compared with what 0bama and his worshippers in the Democrat party are beginning.

Something will have to be done about Medicare, Medicaid, and socialist security. They are trainwrecks looming just over the horizon. If we assume that young working people do not wish to pay 30% or 40% of their gross income just to pay for my generation's Medicare and social security, then we have no choice but to cut benefits. Most likely, we will have to make them means-tested. Only the poorest people will get any benefits.

These are not tea-parties. They are tea-tantrums. And the adolescent, unserious hysteria is a function not of a movement regrouping and refinding itself. It's a function of a movement's intellectual collapse and a party's fast-accelerating nervous breakdown.

No, Andrew. These are not tantrums. These are well-reasoned protests by people who are genuinely concerned about the direction our federal government is taking us. But I am glad that you oppose the protests. I will be attending two this week and the fact that you disapprove will make them much more enjoyable.