The Daily Aneurysm at jabartlett.com

This isn’t about reforming Social Security at all–it’s about destroying it, which has been an extremist Republican goal practically since the program’s inception.

Getting rid of Social Security. Getting rid of the United Nations. Government through tribalism and fear of “the other.” Triumphalist Christianity. No more “activist judges.” Traditional family values. None of this is new stuff. It’s all been simmering on the right since the days of FDR. Only in the last 25 years has it moved from the loony precincts to the respectable ones. But it’s still the same agenda, only in a more expensive suit.

There’s a plausible argument that the South actually won the Civil War, only it took 130 years to claim its victory. Perhaps there’s an equally plausible argument that maybe, 40 or 50 years later than it expected, the John Birch Society is going to win its war against modernity, too.