Downsizing government to death

more: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-lotke20-2008jul20,0,1958019.story

Downsizing government to death
Thanks to 'E. coli conservatism,' weakened government watchdogs have put us all at risk.
By Eric Lotke
July 20, 2008

Last week, consumers were worried about salmonella in their fresh tomatoes. Before that, it was E. coli in their spinach. Something is wrong. Eating a salad is not supposed to be a high-risk activity

But the problem isn't so much farmers. It's ideology. Historian Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland," calls it "E. coli conservatism" -- government shrinks and shrinks until people get sick.

"Government is not the solution to our problem," President Reagan famously declared in his inaugural address in 1981. "Government is the problem."

Many conservatives have gone far beyond that. Their traditional embrace of small government has been replaced with outright disdain for it. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, doesn't just want to shrink government.

looks like the Toris want to live in a modern day feudalism.

Looks like a good article, and more like it might have helped things more a couple years ago. But then again, it's taken a few years for these problems to manifest and grab the public's attention.

Too bad it too often takes tragedies to wake people up.

Sadly, those who whine government is the problem just happen to be

RUNNING IT

Funny, that...

because of this. And a whole generation is growing up believing that nothing can be done to make things better, so fuck it.