Man, the state, and the error of David Brooks

In an opinion piece on Thursday, David Brooks, “conservative” columnist for the New York Times, opened with sentences of such remarkable wrongness that it is imperative to call them out.  (Note: on preparing to post this, I see that Karl has a Green Room post on it as well.  He has chosen a separate line of criticism, so I will forge boldly ahead.)

Brooks’s thesis is that the selfish nature of man, in spite of “checks” placed on democratic government, has created the monstrous public debt in the West.  The wrongness starts with this opening volley:

David Brooks in Democratic “narrative capture”

Bless his heart.  There are times when I think we have David Brooks around to remind us why at least some of the “old conservative punditry” – like the GOP’s one-time career as a “normal party” – wasn’t working for us.

The Democrats in Congress hand him an axe to swing at them, and Brooks takes no notice of it in his haste to range himself with the Democrats, and excoriate Republicans.

Brooks reports that Democrats will “agree” to cut Medicare if Republicans will raise taxes – and jumps on