Touré, Touré, Touré: MSNBC Talker Calls for Gov't Mandates to End Other Gov't Mandates.
Over at Mediaite, Andrew Kirell watches The Cycle, MSNBC's junior-varsity version of Fox's The Five, and zeroes in co-host Touré's recent demand that that government not only force us to eat our vegetables but pass mandates to counter other mandates:
On Monday's edition of the show, Touré was back at it again, spending an entire segment describing all the paternalistic (his words!) laws he'd like to see our government pass.
"Many Americans say they're unhappy about the health care law, but the the popularity of the law is something of a red herring," he began his monologue. "Sometimes, government must lead. Sometimes, government must demand people accept change they're not yet ready for. Those are the moments when leaders with vision can change society and create the crescendos of history. In freeing the slaves, desegregating schools, enacting Title IX, and legalizing gay marriage, government led America into a new world much of the country wasn't ready for, but in time, we adjusted. And this too shall pass."
As Kirell notes, "three of those four examples of 'government leading America into a new world' were government having to reverse policies put into place and enforced by a paternalistic government."
But Touré wasn't finished yet and he continued to channel a mix of Carrie A. Nation and Popeye the Sailor in suggesting that once Obamacare is a rousing success that the president's second term will be bolder yet:
"Maybe he'll go even further trying to bolster his legacy by enacting new paternalistic mandates meant to make the nation better. Saying all Americans must vote, because government works better when all participate in selecting leaders. Eat your vegetables! Maybe mandate that all citizens must go to some sort of post high school college — maybe liberal arts, maybe technical — because America works better when we are better educated and trained. Eat your vegetables! How about a mandate of a year or two of public service after college?"
To which Kirell writes:
If someone were to effectively parody a liberal, what obvious line would come out of their mouth? Something like "the people don't know what's best for them," right?
Well, hey, Touré said exactly that: "I'm just saying, sometimes the people don't know what's best for them."
As a postscript, I'd like to ask what the hell is it with people bringing up national service as a legitimate policy option? This isn't simply a progressive thing—Bill Buckley wrote a whole book about the idea and centrists such as Bill Bradley have been gung-ho on it too—but who seriously would look forward to blowing a couple of years in his or her early adulthood to do make-work jobs? Christ, talk about a paucity of imagination when it comes to new ways of making people miserable.