I have a new article on the American Prospect today about Taxpayer Bill of Rights initiatives (TABOR). If tax reform doesn’t sound particularly interesting, think of it as libertarian plot to eviscerate funding for social spending. There are TABOR initiatives on the ballot in Washington State and Maine this year, threatening funding for education, roads, Medicaid, and other aspects of the social safety net.
Not to step in the way of someone else's blog battle, but this response, by Michael Moynihan of Reason, to Ben Adler's response to Moynihan's criticisms of his Simpsons column, seems to merit another response (feel free to read this in the voice of Comic Book Guy). Being the only Ben in the office at the moment, I think this duty falls to me.
In my review of The Simpsons Movie for The Guardian, I mentioned the libertarian impulse to falsely equate the harmless foibles of liberals with the nefarious proclivities of conservatives. As if to prove that point Michael C. Moynihan, a blogger for Reason, opines in response that the main argument of my piece, (that liberal Simpsons fans should be forewarned that though the movie is funny and worth-seeing it has a streak of politically conservative humor) makes me the equivalent Brent Bozell.
Having actually covered Bozell's shenanigans I seriously resent the comparison. Bozell, like most conservative media watchdogs, does much more than write light-hearted columns gently critiquing a little political message he does not support. Bozell leads campaigns to berate corporations out of promoting content he finds offensive for political or moral reasons. As Moynihan may have noticed I didn't call for a boycott of The Simpsons movie. In fact, I encouraged readers to see it. Apparently, though, in Moynihan's simplistic way of thinking all criticisms are equal, and all political/cultural critics are equally dim-witted and illiberal regardless of what they actually say. I suppose Moynihan thinks no one should write op-eds discussing the political implications of cultural products at all. That's very open-minded indeed.
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