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THE PLANK DECEMBER 21, 2009

Dept. of Reader Feedback

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

I got the following phone message today, in response to my article on the GOP's lack of relevant policy ideas:

Jonathan, I work for a major Republican office holder-a Governor. (Not in a cabinet, but in a sub-cabinet level) and I'm reading your article, 'What happened to all those GOP ideas?'

I understand polemics and the whole game and all that stuff, but do you really have to have your head that far up the ass of Communism in this country?

Your article is stupid. I don't think putting people in jail for not having health insurance is a great public policy idea. Maybe we should put you in jail for being stupid.

This isn't making my argument look any worse.

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7 comments

Five bucks here says the caller works for Rick Perry.

- wildboy

December 21, 2009 at 4:30pm

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Jon Chait is a big doody-head! Doody, doody, doody! [williamyard sticks thumbs in ears, wiggles fingers, bounces to and fro]

- williamyard

December 21, 2009 at 5:09pm

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"Five bucks here says the caller works for Rick Perry" Fifty bucks says the caller WAS Rick Perry.

- csmiller

December 21, 2009 at 6:08pm

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Five bucks it was actually Yard.

- rozenson

December 21, 2009 at 6:19pm

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These poor winger staff kids are losing it. The wheels are coming off.

- WandreyCer

December 21, 2009 at 6:39pm

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Can't ask for much more than that in the way of the other guy making your argument for you.

- sdemuth

December 21, 2009 at 8:30pm

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To get momentarily serious, the caller's language is telling. The leap from potentially penalizing a person via his income taxes for failure to purchase health insurance to "putting people in jail for not having health insurance" is a clear expression of the right's insistence that all state action is the coercive denial of freedom. Fining someone, to YAF alumni, is the same as imprisoning him or shooting him. It is merely a restatement of Mao: "All power flows from the barrel of a gun." So the caller revealed himself, not Chait, to be the communist acolyte.

- rhubarbs

December 22, 2009 at 8:41am

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