With Grover Norquist, Everything Old Is...Still Old

I recently came across a book written by Grover Norquist, the right’s self-appointed taxpayer watchdog. I was interested because this guy stuck his nose into the Volkswagen-UAW organizing issue in Tennessee.

At the time, I was wondering what business he had inserting himself into the fray in the first place.

I had heard his name many times over the last three or so decades, knew he was all about reducing taxes, and really had, nor have, any problem with that concept per se. But, I couldn’t help but wonder where he got off sticking his nose in an issue that had nothing to do with tax rates, but it might have something to do with this.

More to the point, I did, and still do, wonder why the authorities let him interject himself. Would I get the same entrée if I wanted to have a say in the matter? Would you? Of course not. If someone from the political left had come to Tennessee to try to steer the issue, you would have heard the hew and cry from the right regardless of what part of the country you were in.

Why didn’t anyone, especially the actual duly elected authorities in Tennessee cry foul when this happened? That’s a question that wont get answered at this time, but, it has been noted.

What I’d like to bring to your attention is the book Norquist wrote shortly after the Republicans took the House of Representatives in the 1990’s. The book, “Rock The House”[1] is little more than Grover gloating over the win, and proclaiming that this new order will last until the very end of time, because people, finally, got things right for once:

“The Republicans capture of the House of Representatives is the conclusion of a 40 year struggle by a conservative nation to overthrow a liberal political elite that has used gerrymandering, incumbent protection laws, and taxpayer dollars to stay in power.”

Nevermind that once in power, these pure-hearted patriots did exactly the same things.

When discussing liberals, Norquist has this to say:

“Those who have viewed the tax dollars of the American people as their own bank account, have despised those they would rule, and who have built up myths to obscure and defend their policy failures, have lost.”

Nevermind, again, that these defenders of crony capitalism immediately rigged the tax code in favor of the already wealthy – transferring even more wealth from the middle class to the already well-off – which, if nothing else, demonstrates their disdain if not outright hatred for the poor and struggling.

And if that’s not enough, consider how these same gallant republicans take to name calling when describing the needy as ‘takers’, while the rich aren’t greedy, they’re ‘job creators’.

Perhaps the liberals did think of taxpayer money as their own bank accounts. However, the right has actually made taxpayer dollars their own, through subsidies for already profitable companies and ever lowered individual and corporate tax rates.

Grover continues his love letter:

“Republican control of the purse strings will cut off hundreds of thousands of parasites who would live off the work of others.”

Again with the name-calling.

Seriously, Grover, there simply are not that many Alice Waltons.

He adds a statement that is plain disturbing, forewarning us of how these defenders of American Freedom plan on governing:

“New Republican’s are a new breed of political leaders who view the politics of campaigns and the work of governing as a seamless garment.”

Too bad no one read this book when it came out. It could have saved the people of Wisconsin, among others, a lot of trouble.

Norquist informs his readers “Why The GOP Took Back The House In 1994”, and provides 7 reasons, one of them, Reason #3 – he cites the role of ‘coalitions’. This begs the question: Why, when it’s on the right it’s a ‘coalition’, yet when it’s on the left, they are ‘Special Interests”? the answer is that this is nothing more than tried-and-true semantics in action. Norquist owes Frank Luntz a beer.

But I’ve saved the very best of Norquist’s attempts to persuade for the last.

This is the part I’ve been waiting for.

“The mandatory recycling laws passed so cavalierly…involve enormous expenditures of time and energy by families and individuals”

Grover must be the absolute laziest Son-Of-A-Birch ever. Really? Throwing that empty bottle into the other bin that’s right next to the one for garbage is an ‘enormous energy expenditure’?

We know you’re fat, Grover, but come on!

All-in-all, if you haven’t read this book, you haven’t missed anything, regardless of what your political philosophy is. It's little more than a love letter to the right, and to himself. He could have saved a lot of time, paper, and ink and just fellated the whole crowd.

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[1] Rock The House, Grover Norquist, VYTIS Publishing Company, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 1995

http://books.google.com/books/about/Rock_the_House.html?id=pkhCF0ziHaIC

Falling Hard While Falling Short

You hear an awful lot from politicians, conservatives mostly, of how important the private sector is and how the public sector should be eschewed. They seem to forget, exactly as they are speaking those words, that they themselves are working in the public sector.

Maybe the reason we hear this repeated so often from conservatives is that they really do know how hard it is to work in the private sector and they’re trying their best to avoid it by getting elected or, if already in office, to stay there.

And, if not public office, at least a friendly think tank assignment.

It is a dog-eat-dog world, after all.

By working in the private sector, one can focus their talents on practicing self reliance and avoid the temptations of receiving public benefits of any sort, gumption...bootstraps...get up and go (but not this kind). 

So the narrative goes. Sounds good, at least at first blush. Yet, how come so many of those that espouse this philosophy do not adhere to it themselves?

Paul Ryan, a front-runner for a leadership position on the Hypocratic Party, is an excellent example of this phenomena. He works hard to try to deny others' government benefits that he was able to take advantage of. Then, he used the education he got to largely avoid working in the private sector. Why?

Could it be that Ryan feels it’s a lot easier to tell other people how to live, what to do, than to live up to those ideals himself?

Ayn Rand’s name often comes up (she is his hero), when someone invariably mentions the ‘makers’ and the ‘takers’, as Ryan has been known to do. It turns out she herself became a taker in her later years, receiving both Social Security and Medicare, after railing against any form of government assistance, yet she saw no irony in it, when she needed it.

Imagine. The Queen of Self Reliance relying on someone other than herself.

(One of Rand's biggest followers, Nathan Blumenthal (who went by 'Nathaniel Branden', in order to incorporate Rand's name in his) had an affair with Ayn and after he lost interest in the John Birch Society's pin-up girl, began seeing another someone who wasn't his wife. Ayn found out, excommunicated him, which led him to contemplate whether the "Collective" (Ayn's ironic term for her inner circle of friends) would try to assassinate him. Fun group, no doubt.)

This begs the question: If it’s okay to take Social Security, Medicaid, etc. with the justification that your own money was put into it and therefore, one is entitled (I apologize for my language - I hope there are no children in the room) to it, okay...okay – but then you have to stop criticizing others (like Ryan does, but spares any criticism of Rand) who are receiving, or have received, Social Security.

If, on the other hand, you maintain the position that Rand became a ‘taker’, then you must denounce her and her philosophy and never repeat it again.

We also have another member of the Hypocratic Party, Ron Johnson, purported job creator, famed Tea Partier, is another candidate for Hypocratic Party leader. This former CEO of Pacur LLC, a company which received a $75,000 federal grant in 1979 and between 1983 and 1985 used industrial development bonds to fund plant expansion.

Ron Johnson, Senator from Wisconsin, is an admirer of Rand. He's another pretender, posing as a self-resourceful businessman who tries hard to make it sound like he's all bootstrap. Except he isn't. He claims that he and his brother-in-law started Pacur. while this claim is technically true, it is also only technically true. The new company had in reality been in operation, and simply took it's one customer and re-named itself.

Again, nothing wrong with this, and at least it is in the private sector. Yet to hear Johnson talk about it, he make it sound as if he did it on his own. The reality is that he caught a break through the public assistance with loans and grants. That, and marrying a woman who's family had a thriving business didn't hurt, either.

And there, right there, is the rub. Both Johnson and Ryan caught a break and that break is what made the difference in their lives, and surely in the lives of their respective families as well. Others who would benefit from the benefits Ryan got, for instance, wouldn’t be able to leverage those ‘breaks’ as well as he did because we all don’t come from wealthy families to begin with. This group would be using that money to survive, not to thrive.

But if you get a break that’s available to anyone and after you get that break and no longer need it, you fight to deny that same break to others who do need it and are currently in the same boat you were in when you got it, is hypocrisy.

When you hold a position of power from where you can achieve that goal of denying other’s what you once had, then you are in the lead for the Hypocratic Party’s nomination.