Philosophical-Political Comment

You may have heard that in the House vote yesterday on the Stimulus Package, all of the Republicans voted no. Despite President Obama's efforts to reach a compromise, even incorporating several concessions to the opposition into the final version of the bill, the Republican caucus apparently decided that if they couldn't get everything they wanted (essentially turning the bill into nothing but tax cuts) they were not going to play along. This put me in mind of a quote from one of my favorite philosopher's (who I previously quoted here), Lao Tzu:

"Human beings are born soft and flexible,
yet when they die they are stiff and hard...
Plants sprout soft and delicate,
yet when they die they are withered and dry...
Thus the hard and stiff are disciples of death,
the soft and the flexible are disciples of life.
Thus an inflexible army is not victorious,
an unbending tree will break.
The stiff and the massive will be lessened,
the soft and the fluid will increase."

It seems pretty clear to me that the Republicans have decided to opt for ideology over all else, adopting a hard-core stance that taxes and government are always the enemies, instead of recognizing that, especially in times of emergency, they may be among the best tools available to address the problems of such a a large and diverse economy as ours. If adhering to an ineffective, even discredited ideology is all they can imagine in response to the circumstances, then they deserve to wither and die. It's hard for me to see how this represents a stand on principle, as they might claim, as the purported principle (that free markets best govern themselves) seems patently false given the nature of the problem. If the GOP clings to this ideology too tightly, they are probably insuring their further marginalization from national power.