Immediately after Texas Senator Ted Cruz finished his 21-hour mother of all speeches, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid killed the euphoria by responding with some blunt words for the freshman Senator as well as the Tea Party. “I do believe that what we have here with the so-called Tea Party is a new effort to strike government however they can, to hurt government,” Reid said. “Any day that government is hurt is a good day for them. It’s, as I said before, the new anarchy.”
Reid has a point, although he doesn’t realize it and it’s wrapped up in a lie. Of course, Reid was speaking, so that last part is a given.
Typically when we think of anarchy, we think of the absence of laws, or the inability of the government to maintain law & order. But there’s another kind of anarchy, and that other kind is the inevitable result of the government getting into everything, issuing mandates, spending money it doesn’t have, picking winners and losers, transferring wealth. It’s the anarchy of pressure-group warfare-by-law, where each increasingly atomized pressure group seeks to use the law to gain advantage, or to disadvantage other pressure groups.
It’s thuggery-by-legal fiat, and it’s a worse form of anarchy than simple lawlessness, because it destroys public trust in public institutions. The IRS scandal is a recent example. So is Democrat intransigence on spending.
For a more detailed account of how it works, I’ll refer you to the Modern Progressive Instruction Manual — sometimes also known as Atlas Shrugged.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member