On Kansas and Conservatives: Thomas Frank, “Letter from Brownbackistan”
June 19, 2012 2 Comments
Thomas Frank, the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? (2005), has an article in the July edition of Harper’s detailing some of the latest moves by those most conservative of conservatives in the Sunflower State.
The meta-argument Frank makes is that we can understand the larger conservative movement by studying what’s being done in Kansas, and there are a couple of concise points he makes that really shed light on why we’re on the wrong political path.
FRANK: Many of the great conservative crusades of the last few decades, it strikes me, have set out to move the world with some tiny, harmless-sounding lever. Changing defined-benefit pensions into 401(k) plans is always presented as a responsible fiscal move, but it actually transforms the pensioner into a small-time speculator, like it or not.
