“The pundits tell the public that the main split between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives favor small government and want to leave as much as possible to the market. By contrast, liberals believe that the government has to play an active role to ensure that basic needs are met and to limit inequality. This is a great way to describe political reality if you’re a right-winger and you want the government to continue policies that cause income to be redistributed upwards. It’s a very good strategy to pretend that the upward redistribution of income is just the natural workings of the market. On the other hand, it is truly remarkable that so many liberals/progressives are prepared to embrace the conservative framing of political debates, since it bears so little relationship to reality.” [editor’s note: Other than the fact that he mislabels the neocon corporatist fascisti who now occupy the “conservative” realm as “small government” advocates, Mr. Baker is hitting centers here. - SAT] (02/28/07)