The Thing from Alaska

If you've taken Economics 101, you've heard of Adam Smith and the "invisible hand," the principle that causes markets to be self regulating. It's usually considered to be a least a vertebrum in the backbone of conservative philosophy, but people (if we use the term loosely) like Sarah Palin apparently aren't aware of Smith or of principles of any kind even if she can see a library from her window.

Adam Smith, whom some consider to be the father of capitalism, thought it fair, right and proper that the wealthy should pay proportionately more in taxes than the less wealthy. By Sarah's dim light however, the father of Capitalism would be a socialist. In the crepuscular gloom of her perky little mind, any kind of tax is socialism: It's spreading the wealth around. Handing out government checks as a stimulus isn't socialism, but to reduce taxes is the same as to increase taxes because it is socialism if it's taxes. Ok, so you're not from a small town and probably not a real American so to make it perfectly clear, Obama's proposed tax cut for 95% of Americans is:

"the philosophy of government taking more, which is a misuse of the power to tax."

Got that? Less is more and more is less and together it's socialism. Spreading $600 checks around isn't socialism, because it's just giving (real) people back the money wealthier people paid in, but lowering taxes on nearly everybody is socialism because not only is it spreading money around, but a "massive tax increase."

"It leads to government moving into the role of taking care of you, and government and politicians and, kind of moving in as the other half of your family to make decisions for you."

It's really impossible to make any sense of this gibberish, other than to infer from it that she's opposed to funding anything the government does, opposed to having the government do anything but pay for her husband's basketball tickets and her feloniously padded expense account - opposed to government itself.

Who knows if it makes sense to her or to her audience or whether either of them care? It's a hate session. It would be less effective if it made sense. It's the kind of mockery that used to precede pogroms and purges and witch hunts and various slaughters of various innocents in the more primitive dream world Mad Sarah looks backward to as a guide. As pure chant-and-response shamanism, it seems to be as effective at eliciting shrill cries of "kill him" and "socialism" from the howling jackals as it is at scaring hell out of anyone rational. Indeed is anyone rational not terrified of allowing this simple minded sociopath anywhere near Washington?