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Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is a bright guy and he’s done some good academic work. But when it comes to political commentary, he’s both ignorant and arrogant. His latest New York Times column is an example of both.

Krugman called himself a liberal, by which he means that he’s solidly part of the “progressive movement.” These folks have a deep belief in using government to fix the things they see wrong in the world. I understand their theory. I understand their motivation. I just think they’re wrong. I wouldn’t care about them holding an opinion different from mine if they didn’t assert the moral right to control other people — including me.

In his latest column, Krugman talks about the current debt ceiling “crisis.” (I put the word in quotes because I don’t see it as a crisis, even though most others seem to.) He doesn’t see it as a disagreement between two sides with opposing opinions. Instead, he sees it as a battle between crazy people who want to cut the budget and the centrist Democrats who have been willing to do everything reasonable to prevent a crisis. He even calls Barack Obama a “moderate conservative.” (Yes, seriously.)

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What do you think about Michele Bachmann? Obviously, if you’re a real conservative, you’ll love her. Why? Because “those evil liberal Democrats” hate her, of course. Isn’t that good enough?

It’s true that Democrats most hate Bachmann. (Check out the hyperbolic comic book treatment she’s been given recently.) But if you’re a Republican or a conservative, is that a good reason to support her? Does it make her reasonable, right or sane?

I started thinking about this a few minutes ago when I heard a well-educated and generally well-informed lawyer tell someone that he liked Bachmann:

“I haven’t taken the time to carefully study Bachmann as a candidate, but I’m supporting her because the most impressive thing about her is the fear and hate that the Democrats have for her. If the liberals hate her, that’s my kind of president.”

I wonder whether this guy knows that Bachmann’s only employer as an attorney was the IRS? Yes,Bachmann was an attorney suing taxpayers for the IRS. That was her job. And this is the candidate that so many anti-tax Tea Party types love?

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Many people are painfully aware that there’s a fundamental problem in the United States today, but they’ve come to a misleading conclusion about the cause — one that’s leading them to trust the wrong people for a solution.

It’s becoming clear that Ayn Rand’s nightmarish vision of a future in which looters gain power over producers is coming true. I’m not an Objectivist and I disagree with Rand about a number of things, but I’m totally on the same page with her economically — and her metaphors about a world falling apart are ringing more and more true.

But many people seem to be so trapped in the current mainstream party paradigm that they’re fooled into believing that the current president is the problem. Since they see their choices as a matter of either Democrat or Republican, they see salvation in electing a Republican as president.

This frustrates me now, but it’s going to frustrate them even more if it happens — because a Republican president won’t fix the fundamental problems, either.

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