John Cole discusses the war-mongering right-wing's fanatic affection for wars of existential importance but strangely hostile stances towards either serving in, or paying the taxes for, these wars--
I never met a tax I liked, but I do like the fact that I will get to watch the Patriots (and I don’t mean Tom Brady and Randy Moss) in the right blogosphere go BALLISTIC over this proposal. I mean, come on- when they spent the last five years telling you, me, and everybody that this is the greatest struggle of our lifetime and we have to win or Muslim radicals are going to force us to wear burkhas, they didn’t mean it was so fucking serious we had to have a tax increase.
Let’s have some god damned perspective, Democrats. Sure- the war is super important, but when we said sacrifice we meant defacing your car with a patriotic bumper sticker. Not raising taxes. Jesus. It isn’t THAT important.
Glenn Greenwald adds--
Our Beltway establishment today is even worse than the sickly culture about which Smith warns, since they will not even tolerate mild increases in taxes to fund their war amusements. This is a critical disease in our political culture: that all appendanges of our political class (other than the military itself) bear no sacrifice whatsoever for the wars they cheer on, and hence, are "dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war."
(snip)
Preventing any fundamental examination of America's role in the world -- questioning why we invade and bomb and occupy and interfere in the governance other countries more than anyone else by far -- is one of the top objectives of Beltway orthodoxy. Obama has been flirting with challenging these orthodoxies, but given how entrenched they are, flirtation is not nearly enough.
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