60s Redux

There is history in the recent battle over the Recovery Bill. American conservatives are still fighting the battle of the 60s. The 1860s.

Then it was put as a demand for states' rights—the right to secede or to decide on slavery state by state. Now it is a battle against 'big government.' Either way, conservatives just don't like a strong central government. It frightens them. (Oddly, they are very comfortable with large, centrally governed business corporations, maybe because the inefficiency of democracy does not intrude.) Having the federal government spend over a trillion dollars between TARP and Recovery sends them up the wall.

We progressives can empathize, but we do not agree and we should not yield. Like it or not, this is a huge nation—300 million people and third or fourth largest by area. Having every state, county, school district and individual go off and do their own thing to cure this economic crisis is nuts. (For awful example, the governor of South Carolina plans to take much of his state's share and put it into ... paying off state debt, not improving their infrastructure and putting people to work. He plans to do nothing and let the state economy take care of itself.)

Conservatives still pine for when the Confederacy offered, briefly and bloodily, the vision of a nation really a salad of states and counties. As Aesop said, united we stand but divided we fall. Conservatives need to put country first and quit their futile quest for the past.