I’d like all the Tea Partiers who must have skipped U.S. history to contemplate the death of a California cop and three others, killed according to today’s New York Post, no satanic liberal outlet “by a Toyota’s sudden acceleration when the pedal got stuck in a floor mat.”

Now read the rest of the story in the luciferian MSM you avoid to maintain you ignorance (or get someone to explain it to you). The rest of the story is all about e mails revealing how Toyota’s “Safety” division boasted to its bosses that it had saved a hundred millllion dollars by conning the lax Bush Administration regulators to limit, floor pedal recalls in 2007.

Now I want you to go to the family of that cop and jeer about the “terrible burden” federal regulations impose on free enterprise. How government is the enemy, and sure, their husband/father would be alive if there were vigorous regulation, but you’ve been told by your Tea Party leaders that it’s all bad. No government interference for you! Tell the family the cop died to preserve the purity of Tea Party values. I’ll bet that will console them.

Then go read some American history about how we learned in the New Deal that a rational system of regulation saves capitalism from itself, from its unrestrained greed even when that greed means making a buck off killing untold numbers of citizens by hiding the fatal defects in their cars.

This should be a lesson to you, unless it’s too late and you’re already brainwashed, which is my impression.

Maybe then you’ll realize that all aspects of government regulation are not all bad. Incompetent maybe, harassed by brainless de regulators, yes, need to be improved, strengthened, yes. But If the inspectors hadn’t been such pushovers for Toyota’s obscene greed, who knows how many families wouldn’t have to be mourning deaths now? Not just the ones who drove the Toyotas but the ones struck down by the killing machines the anti-regulation, anti-government ideology let loose on the highways.

What if it had been someone in your family? Still want to smash the windows of government?

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It’s beginning to look like a contest to see who can sound more thuggish.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty tells CPAC that he wants to take a nine iron and “smash the windows” of Big Government. Just a day after Scott Brown laughs off the murderous airborne attack on a government building by saying “nobody likes to pay taxes”. Ha ha. Tell it to the dead man’s family Scott. See if they laugh. Oklahoma City must have been a big yuk for these guys.

It sounds like the Tea Party endorses, tolerates or just gets a laugh out of the rhetoric of criminal violence.

And don’t try to make the Austin plane crash guy a lefty, He was anti-Bush because he was anti-politician of all persuasions (read his manifesto: Pat Moynihan his bete noire was a Dem). He was anti government as intrinsically evil. Just like the extremists in the Town Hall/Tea Party movement. Except when it comes to taking medicare handouts from Big Government. Then they’re “a handful of ‘gimme’, a mouthful of ‘much obliged’.”

I’ve seen the violence in blog commenters (anonymous cowards of course) defending the right to take guns to Town Halls. Nobody (or hardly anybody) disputes the right to do it , it’s the (lack of any sane) judgment. Children present and all that. But no… more important to show what a big man you are, gun-toter.

It’s just a matter of time before this kind of window-smashing, gun toting, government-is evil rhetoric turns into more violence against fellow citizens. Don’t say I didn’t predict it.

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Or don’t you realize it’s a sinister government program? Government run health care! Socialized medicine! Aren’t you being a little hypocritical taking money from The Man?

What about all your brave “revolutionary” spirit? What about all the talk of the evils of the federal government? What about all the talk of secession? Why don’t you secede from taking any Medicare benefits? Declare it now. That way you’ll lower evil federal spending. Don’t tell me you don’t want to do your share to reduce the deficit. Don’t tell me you want to be one of those welfare recipients you despise.

Oh yeah, do you want to take away veterans benefits too? That’s a federal government socialized medicine program, right?

What do you mean — evil federal spending is okay if it’s for you? Come on, where’s that town hall spirit? Bond together in the good old-fashioned way of American individualism. Help each other out. Tell your doctors that you’re gonna do a barn-raising to pay for your gall bladder surgery. They’ll understand; it’s all part of the new American revolution you’re brewing.

I’d just like to know how many are really true to the anti-government principles and how many are just freeloading fakers.

Yes I know some of you are not old enough for Medicare, but if you make a declaration now that you won’t ever accept it you can reduce future budget estimates. What are you waiting for?

And, thanks!

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I’m not sure how flattered to feel but there it is. I’d seen it when it came out in The Wall Street Journal’s report on the Vatican’s Top Ten Favorite Album List. But I’d been too modest to claim credit for the fact that the Number One fave of the Vatican was Revolver.

I mean I know the Pope reads this blog and all (kidding!), but will His Holiness’s second hand canonization of my choice for best Beatles albums muster divine support for my choice? My infallible taste in music?

But then I got an email from Charlie Finch saying “You agree with the Pope!”

No, let’s drop the pretense of modesty. The Pope agrees with me. The timing proves it.

It was less than a month ago that, faithful readers will recall, I posted an item entitled: Is Revolver the Greatest Beatles Album? Or what?. Answer I gave: yes!

Now six weeks later we learn that the Vatican newspaper says Revolver is not only the greatest Beatles album but NUMBER ONE in the Vatican Top Ten albums of all time.

Sure, you say, it’s the Vatican newspaper, not the Pope, who made the picks, But I don’t think they’d run with it without running it by His Holiness. I can even guess his favorite Revolver song: “Got to Get you Into My Life”. .

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I’ve praised his show in the past, lamented its departure from my local radio spectrum, and now am grateful for its return . He’s doing 4 hours a night, seven nights a week and it’s almost never boring. He’s on WABC 770 AM in New York at 9 p.m.. Same station as Rush, ditto heads, Tune in and learn the difference between inquisitive reporting, conflicting viewpoints and know it all pronouncing. (Hiswebsite can probably locate it in your area).

He’ll introduce you to an eclectic smart group of reporters and writers on a wide array of subjects particularly history, and he (generally) can tell those who have an edge on the pack on whatever current event comes up. Often real working reporters who know things, not pundits.

I may disagree, but I respect the intelligence of the guests, and Batchelor respects the intelligence of his audience. Which doesn’t mean being boringly pedantic, he gets excited by the unfolding of history in front of us. Sometimes offering an unexpected, cranky point of view of his own. He once asked me to be a guest, but our pre show discussion turned into a kind of argument, and we have not had occasion to speak since, so this is not a favor for a friend. I’m doing it for myself–and for you, blog reader.

I can’t think of a cable or talk radio show that matches its intellectual energy and intensity. Plus he sounds like he’s having fun doing, it and the zest doesn’t diminish the seriousness. Give it a try.

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I don’t think it’s a good idea, at least in the way it’s been proposed here by Microsoft’s chief research and technology officer Craig Mundie.

But he’s addressing a genuine problem that I have made a recurrent cause on this blog: the poisoning of (small d) democratic discourse by anonymous abusive cowards who spew venom and then scurry behind a screen name to hide from responsibility for their words. It’s a factor in both liberal and conservative blog comment sections, although I thought conservatives were the ones in favor of “personal responsibility,” so you wouldn’t find them hiding from accountability and transparency.  You would think they would be the ones who would be in favor of taking responsibility for their words. Sadly this has not proved to be the case.

It’s a problem I’ve addressed in an essay in the forthcoming anthology New Threats to Freedom edited by Adam Bellow. It’s due out in May, according to Amazon.com.

Mundie suggests the solution for the problems caused by internet anonymity/irresponsibility should be, as the New York Times blogger in the link above put it:

…authentication. He [Mundie] draws an analogy to automobile use. If you want to drive a car, you have to have a license (not to mention an inspection, insurance, etc.). If you do something bad with that car, like break a law, there is the chance that you will lose your license and be prevented from driving in the future. In other words, there is a legal and social process for imposing discipline. Mundie imagines three tiers of Internet I.D.: one for people, one for machines and one for programs (which often act as proxies for the other two).

As I said that’s a bad idea, way too extreme. But I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in seeing that there is a problem to be addressed. But I don’t think government should be involved. As I suggest in my forthcoming essay, instead of government regulation, anonymous abusive cowards — who basically occupy the same degraded social and moral status as anonymous obscene phone-call abusers did in the past — shouldn’t be locked up but rather should be discouraged by private sector means — by shaming them for their cowardice.

As one writer on this issue suggested, every time you see an anonymous abusive screen name comment you should imagine the words “I am a contemptible coward” appended to the coward’s comment.

I wonder how many contemptible cowards will come forward to identify themselves as such in response to this.

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I’ve had some requests to reprint this account of my journey and my belief that his silence was a principled position. A reproof to the publicity industial complex (a phrase first used there in).

Rest in the peace you sought so long and hard.

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Or are they just content to see them suffer and die in greater numbers because they are poor? Remember this is not a question about Obamacare and its flaws. If you dodge the question with a typical loutish rant on that subject it’s an admission of ignorance or cruelty. This is a question about what you, Tea Partiers would do if you had the power. I’d like to hear specifics, else you’ll in effect be admitting you just don’t care.

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Some commenter recently sought out my views on Nabokov’s uncompleted work, The Original of Laura and acted indignantly like I’d never addressed the question before, So, just in case you missed it. here is a link to the most recent of at least five columns I’ve written on the subject for The New York Observer and Slate. There will be a quiz.

In any case I’ll take this opportunity to link to a podcast of the recent segment of This American Life I I did. on the so called “Letter of Last Resort” in British nuclear submarines which I think you’ll find of interest.

In fact for my book on nuclear war I’d like to hear from any nuclear submariners who feel free to talk.

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I’m not accusing all Republicans of holding these views, but I haven’t heard many cries of outrage or calls for disavowal.

I guess being brought up by liberal Democratic parents, I was predisposed to believe this is how Republicans really think of the poor. But I know that’s not true of all of them.

On the other hand, why the silence? Here, I’ll give Republicans a chance to say that isn’t how they think. and please don’t waste your breath telling me Democrats think bad things. It will indicate to me you are avoiding the question because you can’t answer it or the answer is damning. The question about your party’s soul.

Wouldn’t you be ashamed to be in the same party that encourages the likes of this repulsive pol? I’m talking about South Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate, Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, who delivered himself of this wisdom:

(CNN) – South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, under fire for drawing a comparison between needy people and “stray animals,” said Monday that he regrets his choice of words.

In a phone interview with CNN, Bauer, a Republican candidate for governor, said, “I wish I had used a different metaphor.” Bauer told an audience Friday that people receiving government assistance are like “stray animals” because “they breed” and “don’t know any better.”

No Andre, you’re the one who doesn’t know any better. Thousands of years of moral evolution that have placed a high value on helping the unfortunate passed you by, you amoral ignoramus. And don’t compound it by lying, you heartless creep. You don’t regret it; you only regret the momentary media revelation of your repugnant true nature.

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