humoring them and allowing them to influence the levers of power doesn't seem to be working out so well.

People blind or immune to reason, while having a place in any society and entitled to a modicum of interpersonal respect, shouldn't really be entrusted with the reins of power nor have their "teh stoopidness" validated by being given a plantform to spread said "teh stoopidness". Should they? It's like a virus and once it infects a population it's darn near impossible to treat much less eradicate to the detriment of the body politic. Ya think? Or should we continue to hold seats at the table for the people who believe the earth is 6000 years old despite overwhelming physical and scientifically validated data that says otherwise? I'm all for taxpayers subsidizing their relocation to Texas and once they're all there allow Texas to secede from the union to form its own country of TehStupidstan. Problem solved.

I hear you can buy your meds online from Canada at discounted rates. Maybe you should consider looking into it.

What I continually find surprising, no disrespect to Glen intended, is how incredibly dumb and irrelevant some posters posts can be. Prima facie example--Lotus Feet.

I guess the real question is how long did it take you to construct the electronic catapult that launches your stupidity into the toobz? A day, week, year . . . my guess is a lifetime. Then again that you actually earned a living doing anything in your lifetime may be proof positive that there is a God and I'll have to rethink my whole atheism thing. Very weird. Maybe it's just a matter of randomness or the truism that even low probability events do occur now and again. I'll give it a quick think and get back to you.

You seem to be a bright shiny example of the three new nouns of the day. (h/t to original poster--instant classics)

Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future in respect to Lotus et al.

Ignoranus (n.): A person who's both stupid and an a*shole--see Lotus.

Dopeler Effect (n.): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter than they really are because they come at you rapidly--definitely see random sample of Lotus posts.

Without attributing thoughts to GG that he hasn't articulated, there is, I think, another fundamental obstacle to achieving solutions to problems (particularly economic ones) that he hints at in his writings about "policy/partisanship being ideology and that it's also the desireable state of politics"--the false belief that compromise is necessarily a productive or desireable mechanism for political problem solving.

We don't compromise on the physical properties that make a combustion engine run or the coefficient of lift that allows a plane to fly. Which is not to say scientific theories aren't malleable and subject to refinement as new data is found, variables varied, and test results analysed to assess and improve the predictive validity or "meaning" of the theory.

But in politics we assume that we can bake a delicious cake that large numbers of people will like or benefit from--by promoting compromise between 550 + patissiers--which is very unlikely independent of the fact we all have different tastes.

We need stark contrasts particular in finding workable solutions to our problems, particularly economic ones. That competition of ideas needs to have clear winners and losers so that successes and failures (results) can be attributed to a particular ideology and policy prescriptions.

This is exactly what we don't have in American politics today. With the exception of the entire GOP and a few hearty souls on the left in the House and Senate, we have an ideologically pure CENTER. And it is achieving nothing other than the utter destruction of America with its oligarchic kleptocratic imperialistic non-conflict transpartisan economic voodoo capitalism bullshit.

Only way we snap out of this and turn America around is precisely what Glen suggests--a vibrant vocal progressive populist movement forcing President Obama to lead and our elected centrist zombies representatives to follow. And the one and only way to do that is for there to be electoral consequences to deviating from our policy goals. We have to buy back our political system. It really is that simple.

Companies that are producing all their goods overseas have to be pursuaded (either by their morals, patriotism or tax incentives) to return to the USA and open up factories.

Companies don't have "morals or patriotism". What they have is profit calculus which can be influenced. GG has come out as against boycotts and there certainly are many valid arguments why they are both ineffective and harmful to the undeserving. Nevertheless it needs to be a tool in the aresenal but only if targeted, timely, and given press.

I have no problem with "tax incentivizing" (i.e. subsidizing) business to return but only if simultaneously tax disincentivizing capital flight, executive salaries, and slight increases to capital gains and upper income rates.

But all in all I think that it is the mind of the consumer that needs to be changed. We can't simply buy things because we want them, we have to become "informed" consumers and understand the implications of our consumption and only consume those things produced via worker and environmentally sustainable policies.