Road Trip

My favorite and bestest commentor (and Fold Blog contributor) Spinner made a good analogy about the state of government spending the other day.  It was so good that frequent multiple personality disorder Kristen Billy left a Bravo! in reply.  Now I admit, Spinner does a great job and his analogy on spending makes a good point.

Here is an analogy I hope makes it clear: while on your road trip to Vegas, your buddy was speeding along at 100 MPH when it was his turn to drive. Now that you are at the wheel, you are only going a few MPH faster, but get pulled over. Do you think the cop will care that it's only a bit faster than your buddy was going and is not "unprecedented" or "uncontrollable" when compared only as an increase over the previous speeds?

Yet I'm not sure I can go along with it fully.

First of all, who's the cop?  Is the GOP the cop or are the voters?  I think I'm going to assume the voters are the cop.  And the buddy sitting next to me is the GOP.

Not to take anything away from Spinner, but his analogy doesn't quite encompass what's happening.  He comes close.  He just leaves out a few quick details.  Here is a much better version of that same analogy:

My buddy GOP took over the car on a trip to Vegas while it was traveling at 50mph.  He immediately went nuts, started doing all sorts of irresponsible stuff, stuff that he claimed he was totally against a few miles back and then claimed that it all was okay because his grand daddy Ronnie proved speeds didn't matter.  He increased the speed to 100mph and after miles of erratic driving with the tank almost on empty it was, rather unfortunately, my turn to drive. Before I could even fasten my seat belt, my buddy GOP went berserk and started yelling and screaming that my speeds were way too fast, that it was uncontrollable, that I had put the car on a path of total destruction.  He lied that everything I was doing was "unprecedented" and that if I didn't stop speeding and listen to him and do everything he wanted that it all was going to blow up in a really bad way.

Then the cop pulls us over.  Of course the cop is not going to care that my buddy is nuts.  But none of this is about the cop.  It's about the person in the passenger seat all of a sudden complaining about speeding and making up lies just so he can get back in the drivers seat. Essentially, it's about him wanting to drive again.

Unlike the cop, the voters have been in the car with us the whole time.  They remember well just how we got to 100mph and how then it was all okay.  But as soon as we switched drivers, speeds became a huge concern.  The only shot my buddy GOP has at getting back in the drivers seat is to lie and pretend to the voters that it was all under control when he was driving. Never mind the speeds, he was doing it for the country as a whole, for the freedom of the open road.  It's only now that he's not driving that freedom is in doubt.  If he can convince the voters of that charade, then he gets back behind the wheel again.  It's going to take a lot of convincing, a lot of backseat voter amnesia and a lot of lying from my buddy.  But it's entirely possible.