When Freedom Is Dictatorship

Really, what is it about wingnuts? They love to march around with slogans about “liberty” and “freedom” on their T-shirts, but give ’em half an inch and they take a mile of everyone else’s freedom.

I thought about that the other day when I read that Scott Walker is trying to use a conservative judge to have Wisconsin’s recall law declared unconstitutional. This is how many totalitarian governments start, you know; not with tanks in the street but with people in power quietly rigging the system to keep their power. And the loyalty oath thing in Virginia is just creepy. But, hey … it’s all in the interest of “smaller government,” right?

Cough.

Steve Benen writes that the payroll tax cut is unlikely to be extended beyond March. He says this because the Republicans named to the “conference committee” are on record as being hostile to middle-class tax cuts.

Kyl, for example, was instrumental in sabotaging the super-committee process, and was described by Democratic negotiators as “walking napalm.” Crapo and Barrasso, meanwhile, are two far-right senators who’ve never demonstrated any willingness to accept concessions on anything.

What’s more, note that the House GOP leadership has already announced its conferees, most of whom have already said they don’t want a payroll-cut extension no matter what concessions Democrats are willing to make.

Very likely the plan is to blame Obama an the Dems for not cooperating on the tax cuts. And we’ll see what the Dems do about that. Will the American people continue to reward the bad behavior of Republicans in order to punish Democrats for not standing up to Republicans?