Here's what's wrong with dissent in America

Well, I was almost going to give this very popular video (nearly a million views) an unqualified thumbs up -- but then, around the three minute mark, our hostess had to come back and stump for the Gospel According to Ayn.

No, Carey (that's the young lady's name: Carey Wedler): "The institution of government" is not the problem. With that phrase, you are taking in all forms of government, including democracy, of which we need a great deal more, not less.

You are damning the governmental regulations which protect workers.

Your forebears in the 19th century worked ten-to-twelve hour days, six days a week, and were paid with scrip for the company store. Millions of others were actual slaves. Do you want to live like that? I don't think so. You know what put an end to those practices? Government.

Your fellow workers in Germany and other European countries are better paid and better protected than you are, and they get at least one full month of paid vacay each year. The workers in those countries attained vastly improved lives because they exercised their democratic rights. In other words, they did not disparage "the institution of government": They took control of that institution.

Carey, if you want to toss out "the institution of government," then you have no right to decry Goldman Sachs and the other "malefactors of great wealth" who created the crash of 2008. Governmental regulation -- nothing else -- prevented the Wall Street scoundrels from destroying this country in a series of Great Depressions. FDR imposed regulations on our financial sector, and his rules worked out just fine, giving us decades of prosperity.

And then the fucking Libertarians came along. Since 1980, they have slowly demolished our protections. If the SEC had been doing its job, we wouldn't have had an economy infested by CDOs backed by crap loans.

And now you're saying that Obama's manifest failures mean that we need more Libertarianism? Libertarianism is the fire destroying our national infrastructure. Why would you want to pour gas on that fire?

Sure, Obama is a fraud. What made him a fraud was the fact the he sold out to the corporate interests who fund too much of our political process. And now those same corporate interests are hitting us with incessant propaganda: "See? Obama proves that government -- all forms of government -- cannot be trusted. So let's get rid of government altogether. Goldman Sachs = We the People! We One Percenters should be able to do whatever the fuck we want -- to whomever we want! We're going to take this country back to the 19th century, back to the era of twelve hour workdays and the company store. Yaaaa-HOO!"

So let me ask you, Carey -- if you think that Libertarianism is the answer, then why are the more Libertarian-oriented red states such economic basket cases? According to your theory, those states should be leading the way, because the "institution of government" is less powerful in those regions. Why, then, is most of our economic growth coming out of California and New York and other blue states?

Citizens of the red states take more from the federal treasury than they contribute in taxes. Savor the paradox: The more Libertarian a state is, the more likely it is to be a leech. We in the blue states -- those bastions of "socialist oppression" -- are the truly productive ones. Because we're the only ones who know how to make a profit, we end up funding the wars that the red staters start.

Are you really going to try to argue that the well-educated, civilized denizens of Connecticut should envy the lifestyles of those snaggle-toothed, pauperized peasants in "libertarian" Alabama?

Screw you, Carey. Obama proves that we need more government -- but only if we are talking about truly democratic government, beholden to the 99 percent, not to the richest of the rich.