We only sing about it once in every twenty years.
Everybody’s linking up the “4th of July,” but the only X song for me today is “See How We Are.” And the best post for seeing just that today is Rick Perlstein’s.
What’s the argument? That conservatives’ tragic misunderstanding of freedom has produced exactly what Goldwater feared most: stifling the energy and talent of the individual, crushing creative differences, forcing conformity—and, yes, even leading us to despotism (and I’m not talking about habeus corpus or NSA spying). By methodically undermining the public’s will and ability to underwrite the public good, systematically accelerating economic inequality, and making turning oneself into a commodity—“selling out”—the only possible route for young people who wish a reasonably secure middle class existence, conservatives killed liberty. The canary in the coal mine is the death of young people’s “freedom to live adult lives typified by choice rather than economic compulsion.”
I think I made a decision at some point in the past few days of McCloud Madness; I think I’ll be the better for having done so, soon enough. We’ll see. —Further bulletins as events warrant.
Personally I keep coming back to the world’s a mess it’s in my kiss