Orthodoxy

I think we need to codify an exemption in "Godwin's Law" - the widely-misunderstood internet aphorism that claims any argument on the Internet will evenually involve someone comparing their opponents to Nazis, noting that generally that is a losing proposition.

Peter Hutchinson's piece in the Strib shows us that while comparisons to Hitler are tired and usually abusive, Joseph Goebbels still has a lot to teach us.

Goebbels, of course, codified the "Big Lie" theory of public relations; if you repeat a lie often enough, people will think it's the truth. This is, of course, more sinister than the Big Mistake ("toxic cannibal mutants are roaming flood-ravaged New Orleans! Film at 11"). No, this is when a government or media organ systematically sets out to define truth by repetition rather than fact.

Ipse Hutchinson. You can read the whole thing - but I wanted to focus on a couple of his points which are slipping into Minnesota left/media (pardon the redundancy) orthodoxy:

Don't make any pledges -- the last one did not work out so well.

Really?

Based on...what?

The pledge drew a line in the sand, demanding (on the part of a slim majority of Minnesotans who were and are sick of the nannystatus quo) change in the way Minnesota's government perceives its relationship with the people; are we a free association of equals, or are we a bunch of ripe sucks whose only purpose in life is to feed the rapacious maw of the mother state, to which we owe all?

Most of the Republican state Representatives who lost their seats in 2004 had broken the pledge.

No, indeed; the only problem with the pledge was that Pawlenty started backing off of it. Perhaps there were political reasons to do so. Maybe. There were also political reasons for Ronald Reagan not to demand that Gorbachev "tear down the wall"; there were political reasons for Rudy Giuliani to reach an accord with the New York bureaucracy and city unions against whom he'd declared war.

Remember; when Pawlenty took office, he inherited a $4 billion deficit from the profligate Ventura, a deficit the "experts" (cue the obligatory Larry Jacobs quote) said couldn't be fixed. This past three years haven't been pretty - for anyone on Capitol Hill - but by any rational measure Pawlenty has the job nearly done.

Which brings us to...:

Don't raise the "turnaround" in the state budget. If you do, others will jump in to remind Minnesotans that you helped create the mess in the first place, used accounting gimmicks to make things look better than they actually were, borrowed billions from schools and the tobacco fund, and don't intend to pay it all back. It leaves people wondering whether they can believe you or any politician.

Well, duh. Nobody should believe any politician. Or rather, they should "trust but verify", even for the good guys like Pawlenty.

Did Pawlenty use some "gimmicks"? Pfft. The tobacco fund was legalized extortion; the schools' budget hasn't shrunk, merely grown more slowly than the MFT wanted.

The DFL used gimmicks, of course - the most pernicious of which, regarding temporary surpluses as the basis for more permanent spending, are what really got the state into the mess of 2002; through the cha-cha nineties, Carlson and then Ventura (and their DFL legislative counterparts) repeatedly turned surplus after surplus, for the most part, into more permanent spending, mostly for entitlements.

Where does Peter Hutchinson - or anyhone at the Strib - talk about this?

Let me know when you find it.

Posted by Mitch at February 15, 2006 06:05 AM | TrackBack