This is too good to leave to Kookocracy Watch (and too long). If you want a sense of the heart of the Arizona polity, check out the first comment on the Republic's story about Gov. Jan Brewer's call for budget reform. In response, "ToddStallion1" writes:
These people are doing everything they can to keep robbing Arizonans while the average person is struggling to make ends meet.
For my entire life all I have ever heard is government claim that it was making investments.
Give us money, we will invest in roads, in healthcare, in education BLAH BLAH BLAH
WHEN IS THE RETURN ON THIS INVESTMENT?
Never.
Government does not create anything. All it does is take and redistribute (poorly).
The People who live in Arizona are the driving force behind the economy and the states growth.
BUT now we need to make more investments!
If these people are my investment advisors I WANT A REFUND.
I am not making this up. And why do they always write in CAPITAL LETTERS? Now that I don't have to get death threats from the thugs and job threats from the Real Estate Industrial Complex, reading this stuff is a Laff Riot. Yo, Stallion (little insecurity, there?) -- I suspect even if you didn't attend "government schools," you barrel down freeways and streets paid for by taxes. You drink water that wouldn't be there without government. These are among the returns on "this investment." Good Lord. We know 20-30 percent of undereducated Americans, indoctrinated by talk radio, actually believe this stuff. But probably 60-70 percent of Arizonans who actually vote believe it. Amazing. This is why it's so important that the Kooks actually govern, actually put their "ideas," into broad government policy, with no "moderates" to get in the way. Ideas, as they love to say, have consequences.
The quote actually gives a misleading impression of this individual's coherence. He used to show up in the comment sections of Phoenix New Times stories and blogs, railing about Jewish conspiracies, how Bush was a secret socialist conspiring with other national leaders to bring about One World Government, and so forth.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | March 05, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Todd sounds like my next-door neighbor. He called Bush a RINO.
Explaining the Social Compact to self-described Rugged Individualists is futile. They really believe they're free agents not beholden to anyone, let alone society. That they're often drawing government benefits ought, at the very least, pose a philosophical problem. But, no. That would suggest the person is alert to complexities as opposed to the oversimplifications spoon-fed to him by talk jocks.
Posted by: soleri | March 05, 2009 at 02:58 PM
What are the odds Stallion lives in Sun City, world-wide headquarters of gov't teat-sucking hypocrites?
Posted by: Matt Self | March 05, 2009 at 05:06 PM
There's also a kook that regularly comments on news and opinion at azcentral who calls himself, TaxWatcher. He's really a Weenie... but just as much of a kook as the "stallion" and Jack Harper.
Posted by: Steve | March 06, 2009 at 03:01 AM