The piece is a bit more elegant than your phrase of “drowning in the toilet bowl”, just not as succint and to the point. It’s a bit more like [Republicans] decomposing in the septic tank…

Grover Norquist does indeed come to mind.
I’d like to see his entire agenda drown.

Government handouts for the very wealthy and for very large corporations… That’s what Grover and the boys truly believe in.

Why their views gain purchase in the marketplace of ideas I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m tired of hearing their mendacity.

2008 is the year to shrink the Republican party until it’s small enough to drown in the bathtub toilet bowl

Fixed it for you!

A few years ago I believed that Norquist really was as Sirota describes — a “fake populist” and as described in thread, someone who’s co-opted libertarian ideology.

But after researching this bete noire — or researching matters in which he popped up like a prairie dog, here and then there, and over there — we are looking at something far, far worse.

Norquist and his equally disturbing counterpart Howie Rich at Americans for Limited Government are the very worst elements of something for which I don’t even have a name. They are actively undermining state governments across the entire country, while simultaneously pushing the envelope on public discourse so far to the right that we can barely recognize it as conservatism. Norquist and Rich are not merely finding ways to downsize government, but to completely bankrupt it and lay waste to the state’s ability to govern, in such a way that corporate interests can move in and prey readily upon a desperate or ill-prepared state.

Look at the ballot initiatives in many states that support not only TABOR (taxpayer bill of rights) but school vouchers, pro-marriage, anti-affirmative action, eminent domain, part-time legislatures, term limits as starters; nearly all of these have roots in the same front organizations, as do subsequent recall organizations when these measures fail as legislation (generally a first attempt before pushing as ballot initiatives). The ballot initiatives are often pursued in a manner that approaches outright fraud, while costing the taxpayers a lot of money for handling; the recalls, too also cost taxpayers money. The damage these initiatives and legislation cause also damages the state; Michigan’s budget crisis was prolonged by nearly a year because of the inexperience of legislators mandated by newer term limits sold to the public by these hooligans, as one concrete example.

These are fascists at work; they are profiting from this locust-like process, and we’re not looking at how they are rewarded for their efforts. These are the shock doctrinaires, setting in motion disaster capitalism by laying waste to our system of government and in turn create conditions ripe for corporations to take over our commons.

Next time you meet a Libertarian, ask them if they drove on a street to where you are. Then tell them their libertarianism is a joke.

That works with people who screech about “socialized medicine.” I tell them that they’re driving around on socialized highways. It’s been effective in my experience… at least it shuts them up!

First, it has taken close to 5 minutes for this page to load, so I can post this message. There is absolutely no reason as this page is all text except about a 2″ header. What is it loading from blip.tv, tribalfusion rmxads and all the others? There’s nothing like that on this page?

You want posters you’d better change your scripts to let me write without having to wait 5 minutes first.

On ‘Libertarians’: I had a similar experience with an acquaintance recently. He once, several years ago referred to himself as ‘to the right of Genghis Khan’ and then a few days ago he said he was a Conservative. I smiled and asked him, “What do you mean? You’re one of the least Conservative people I know.”

He went quiet real quick.

There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance out there and this year is a good time to shake it up and realign them.

Saturday night SNL had John McCain on as a guest and one of his skits referred to his tight-fisted anti-earmarks policy and how it has shrunk paved roads and the number of post offices in Arizona since he’s been senator. I think it’s stupid of him to show people pictorally what he is saying. They might begin to believe he really means that crap. He said he hasn’t brought pork to Arizona despite bringing billions in military pork to Arizona corporations.

His anti-earmarks anti-pork position is as fake as his anti-lobbyist position.

However, since there actually is an infrastructure bill in the making this could be a great time to put that question to the American people. Do they want ‘pork’ in their district? Do they want their roads fixed? Do they want bridges fixed? Or would they rather take a pass?

Put the question to them in Iowa and see how they feel about the disastrous flooding they’re facing and whether they’d like flood walls, help from FEMA and perhaps better service from the Army Corps of Engineers? Do they want that pork from earmarks or not?

I wonder if people in Mississippi and Louisiana are still enjoying the lack of recovery-from-Katrina help from the federal government?

They may call themselves Libertarians or ’small government’ Republicans, but when it comes to jobs and natural disaster relief and highway funds and post offices there are probably a lot of those people who would think twice before saying “NO, we don’t want your money.”

Being kind thoughtful people it behooves Democrats to offer to those people the option of turning away the money!

Yes, I know it’s a struggle but I’d like to think that I will gain some benefit from it rather than be the one who sees the promised land but never gets there. No thank, I want mine now.