Fuck Mike Greene

"One party represents the rich corporations, the other party represents every oddball out there. Nobody represents the middle class anymore."
Mike Greene


The above quote says a great deal about the economic libetarian, radical anti-government mindset. There is a lot of appeal in taking a primitive, Magna-Carta view of liberty, where freedom means nothing more than the freedom to protect and expand what's yours. Those who measure their liberty by their tax they don't have to worry about things like independent thought. they never have to give up their childhood reverence of authority. They never suffer the creeping suspicion that the town minister is out of his mind.

Most importantly, they never have to suffer the thought that the "oddballs" (artists, athiests, homosexuals, minorities) are entitled to the same rights as those who obey the imagined unitary standard of Americanism. If one adheres to this standard, than one has made the only contribution to the greater society that one is required to. So fuck taxes. The government is probably going to spend the money on the oddballs anyway. Oddballs who should righfully be in a state of servitude toward decent, normal Americans.

I'll say this for Mike Greene, I underestimated him. I was in North Platte when the "Western Nebraska Taxpayers" association got its start. I never thought they would have made any noise without Dave Simpson, former editor of North Platte's Daily Telegraph (You have no idea what a rag is.) pimping them up at every opportunity. But Simpson moved out to Wyoming, and now Greene and the boys are causing a bigger stir than ever.

He should also be commended fo opposing Tax Increment Financing to big corporations and shoveling more money to the insatible whore that is the UNL athletic department.

But in pushing for his baby, Inititive 423, Greene has revealed quite the persecution complex. Every mayor, sheriff, county clerk, or teacher who worries publicly about how budget cuts may affect their jobs had might as well be Nixon. As far as Greene sees it, government is inherently, automatically corrupt in a way that private enterprise is not. Logic and observation both show us that any kind of power, be it political or monetary, is equally likely to corrupt. But this is of no consequence to the libetarian. There is just some sort of black magic that makes govenment bad. You just have to believe it.

So Greene takes his logic to its limits. All of these teachers, police captains, etc. are all part of the same "big government" and therefore must be motivated by nothing more than greed and hatred of capitalism. If Greene got over the fact that "government" employees are opposing him, he might see how his baby is being opposed by a good many normal, non-oddball Nebraskans, and that perhaps accusing them of being part of a vast socialist conspiracy while wearing that scowl of his isn't the best way to win people over.