After 30 years of assault, the radical right nears its nirvana of burning government to the ground.

[seafan]

"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." ----Ronald Reagan

"Now many of our Christians have what I call "The Goo-Goo Syndrome". 'Good Government'. They want everybody to vote.

"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." ----Paul Weyrich, radical conservative icon, 1980

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' ---Ronald Reagan, 40th president of US (1911 - 2004)

“If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.” ---Richard Perle, adviser to Reagan in the 1980s and one of the leading architects of George W. Bush's aggressive invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan

"Read my lips. No new taxes." ----George HW Bush, 1988

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator. ---George W. Bush, December 18, 2000

"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." -----Grover Norquist, 2001

MR. RUSSERT: You have said that you--your ultimate goal is a permanent Republican majority. What does that mean?

MR. ROVE: Well, first of all, there are no permanent majorities in American politics. They last for about 20 or 30 or 40 or, in the case of the Roosevelt coalition, 50 or 60 years and then they disappear. But would I like to see the Republican Party be the dominant party for whatever time history gives it the chance to be? You bet. ---Karl Rove, November 7, 2004

RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting (Iraq war).

CHENEY: So?

RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls. ---VP Dick Cheney, March 19, 2008

“We’re going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop.” ---David Addington, legal counsel to Dick Cheney

"You've heard of mental depression. This is a mental recession,"

....
"We have sort of become a nation of whiners. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline." ---Phil Gramm, July 10, 2008

''We need this to be clean and to be quick.'' ---Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, September 21, 2008

"Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" ----Sarah Palin, March 23, 2010

Candles, flowers and signs are shown outside the offices of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., during a candlelight vigil for Giffords Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011 in Tucson, Ariz.
(Credit: AP Photo/Matt York)

"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." ----Michele Bachmann, 2009

And if we are, we can embed in society a sense of caring that makes government less necessary. There would be no greater tribute to our maturity as a society than if we can make these buildings around us empty of workers; silent monuments to the time when government played a larger role than it deserved or could adequately fill. ---- Jeb Bush, 2003 INAUGURAL ADDRESS in Tallahassee as Governor of Florida

The radicals are rushing toward their dystopian climax of burning government to the ground.

[MadMaddie]

1. This is what this country is facing

money and religion, we either stop them now or we will end up with a Religious run country.

[Angry Dragon]

3. It will be interesting to see which god ends up on top

Let the gods fight among themselves

[polichick]

2. imo the horror is it's happening with the help of a Democratic WH.

[Kurmudgeon]

4. Some of you should note that Paul Weyrich's comment was very anti-religion.

Before any more aiming blame in the wrong direction gets started.

[aquart]

5. Turning the USA into Somalia. What an achievement!

[WingDinger]

6. Um, we must shrink Gov enough to strangle it in the bathtub.

[JanMichael]

7. It's so called liberals too. Not just the RR.

Wait they are actually the RR just calling themselves Democrats and Liberals.

Let's widen the net.

[seafan]

8. The wrecking crew: How a gang of right-wing con men destroyed Washington and made a killing

This one's a keeper.


Thomas Frank writes in August, 2008:

.....

Today industry conservatism includes specialists in dozens of fields. There are professionals and amateurs; those who do it because they’re paid to do it and those who do it because their eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Entrepreneur. It includes establishment firms and feisty start-ups, megacontractors taking billions to do work that the government used to do itself for far less, young men with a nice smile and a single client— who just wants to do a little clear-cutting out West somewhere. In conservative circles you encounter entrepreneurs both formally and casually, at carefully programmed events laying out the opportunities for profit opened up by Hurricane Katrina, or in conversation at a banquet celebrating some right-wing anniversary or other. At one such event in 2004, waiting for the presentation of a “Charlton Heston commemorative firearm,” I made the backslapping acquaintance of a freelance motivational speaker who, upon discovering that one of my tablemates was an officer of the Transportation Security Administration, immediately sought his confirmation that “we’re gonna privatize that, right?”

For some in winger Washington this is an idealistic business, but what gives it power and longevity is that it is a profitable business. I mean this not as polemic but as a statement of fact. Washington swarms with conservative ideologues not because conservatives particularly like the place but because there is an entire industry here that supports these people—an industry subsidized by the nation’s largest corporations and its richest families, and the government too. We are all familiar with the flagship organizations—Cato, Heritage, AEI—but the industry extends far beyond these, encompassing numerous magazines and literally hundreds of lobbying firms. There is even a daily newspaper—the Washington Times—published strictly for the movement’s benefit, a propaganda sheet whose distortions are so obvious and so alien that it puts one in mind of those official party organs one encounters when traveling in authoritarian countries.

.....

There is so much money in conservatism these days that Karl Rove rightly boasts, “We can now go to students at Harvard and say, ‘There is now a secure retirement plan for Republican operatives.’” The young people who, like Jack Abramoff before them, have answered conservatism’s call over the past three decades were obeying their conscience, perhaps, but they were also making a canny career move.

Canny career moves are just about all we can expect from conservative government these days: tax breaks for wealthy benefactors, wars started and maintained for the benefit of American industry, fat contracts granted to the clients of the right consultant. Like Bush and Reagan before him, John McCain is a self-proclaimed outsider, but should he win in November he will merely bring us more of the same: an executive branch fed by, if not actually made up of, lobbyists and other angry, righteous profiteers. Washington itself will remain what it has been—not a Babylon that corrupts our pure-hearted right-wingers but the very seat of their Industry Conservatism, constantly seething and effervescing, with tens of thousands of individuals coming and going, each avidly piling up his own tidy pile but between them engaged in an awesome common project.

Take a step back, reader, and see what they have wrought.

Tragically, this phenomenon has bled over into the Democratic Party.