the mojowire

Not to beat this to death...

Rick Pearlstein makes the argument about the conservative reaction to preschool proposals better than I can..

Oh, and go out and buy Nixonland and read it hippy!..Right now!..

Just Stop. Yes, you. Stop right now...

I want to start by saying this is a well considered, thoughtful post about early childhood education.  

And I hate it with the burning intensity of a thousand supernovas...

Lemme explain..no wait...let me sum up....

Not because  I don't support the idea of early childhood education, or government support for trying it, or any sort of actual policy reason.

I hate because it is an attempt to argue for conservative support for this idea, and THAT idea is tremendously wrong headed and destructive.   For the very good reason that conservatives will never, ever support such a program.  They are not interested in improving early childhood education.  Or public education at all.  Or governing.  Or anything that isn't burning our institutions to the ground and stomping on the ashes.   It treats conservatives like they are a serious group of citizens concerned with the public interest and there is absolutely no reason to believe that.  None. Zero. Zilch.  Nada.  

I'm sure some of you are saying, "Biz, plenty of conservatives I know would be interested in this idea."  I probably know some of them too.  Unfortunately, these same reasonable people will vote for a pantheon of zealots and numbnuts who will not only hamstring each other to come out against the idea, but gleefully torch public education in this country at every level if given the chance.  Please see Sam Brownbacks run in Kansas as example number one.   So whatever reasonable conservatives tell you about their will to engage, its for naught.  Running out to vote for the Steve Kings and Louis Gohmerts of this world requires I not spend any time engaging  them. 

How much mayhem and chaos at every level does the conservative movement of this country have to engage in before well meaning public policy types figure out that these sorts of efforts to convert them based on their public bleating about their governing policy are an absolute waste of time.  Worse than a waste, you are contributing to the problem by treating them as anything other than the pure vandals they are.  

This is the movement that wants to rip health insurance away from millions of Americans because reasons.  Not because it isn't working, or people are not signing up, or insurance companies are going out of business, or doctors are fleeing the country on makeshift rafts to countries without socialized healthcare.  Wait, there are no countries worth fleeing to without that.  Whatever.  They want to blow it up because to do otherwise would be to allow the black President an achievement.   And that cannot happen.  Reducing the country to ashes would not be too high a price to prevent that.  

So just stop.  Everybody just stop this right now.  Take all that well meaning energy and put it towards beating these people at the ballot box at every level.  In every election.    All of this we can work with them garbage only empowers them by giving them the opportunity to refuse.  They don't want to work with you.  They want to burn the institutions of our Republic down to the ground and replace them with some pseudo Theocratic Randian construct of their fevered imaginings.  Don't give them the fuel to burn.