Pierced

David Fucking Brooks states:

But, in the 1930s, people genuinely looked to government to ease their fears and restore their confidence. Today, Americans are more likely to fear government than be reassured by it.

Charles Pierce rebuts:

(Yes, because we have had 30 years of reckless vandalism by the political movement in which you cut your teeth. We have had three decades of anti-government rhetoric from people who then set out to prove themselves correct by cutting taxes, spending money on useless weaponry, conducting wars off the books, and hiring boobs and bunglers to staff the federal agencies. We have had Michael Brown. We have had James Watt. We have had Anne Gorsuch and Silent Sam Pierce. People don't trust government? You know what? I don't trust my car if I hire a blind drunk to drive it. Doesn't mean I don't use it to get to the store. Your movement created apathy and distrust, and the people who pay your honoraria profited by it handsomely. People don't trust vaccines, either, and Jenny McCarthy didn't know any more about medical science than you do about "the American people.")

David Fucking Brooks states:

In sum, in the progressive era, the country was young and vibrant. The job was to impose economic order. Today, the country is middle-aged but self-indulgent. Bad habits have accumulated. Interest groups have emerged to protect the status quo. The job is to restore old disciplines, strip away decaying structures and reform the welfare state. The country needs a productive midlife crisis.

Charles Pierce rebuts:

(You first, Bunky. Is there any doubt that, had David Brooks been writing for The New York Times in say, 1901, his columns would have been all about the quaint customs of those coal miners in Appalachia, and isn't it clever how they drink their evening libations from mason jars, and aren't they just the most religious of people, the way they all sing those lovely shape-note hymns when one of their men dies at 45 from black lung? We don't want any onerous regulations stifling all of this, do we? Is there any doubt that he would be arguing that Morgan and Carnegie and the rest of them are the engines of our "young and vibrant" economy and that LaFollette and the rest of them are standing in the way of progress. Is there any doubt where he would have lined up after Homestead? The country needs fewer lectures from people who do not understand it.)

from here