The Right-Wing Dog Whistle Buried In Scott Walker’s Announcement Speech
I found this article to be very informative and scary!!
The Right-Wing Dog Whistle Buried In Scott Walker’s Announcement Speech http://thkpr.gs/3680245 #wipolitics #p2 #Walker2016
The Right-Wing Dog Whistle Buried In Scott Walker’s Announcement Speech
by Ian Millhiser Jul 14, 2015 12:23pm
It’s no secret that Scott Walker is a very conservative governor. Indeed, Walker’s unapologetic conservatism is the centerpiece of his presidential campaign. In his announcement speech on Monday, Walker touted his efforts to hobble unions, his work restricting access to abortion, his support for easier access to guns, his conservative fiscal policy and his efforts to make it harder to vote in the state of Wisconsin.
A seemingly innocuous line in that speech, however, suggests that Walker’s broader ideological goals are even more ambitious than his record as governor suggests. In three sentences laying out his overarching theory of government, Walker appears to align himself with political theorists, some of whom died more than a century ago, who would radically dismantle the American system of government. He also appears to align himself with more modern constitutional theorists who wish to reinstate long-discredited Supreme Court cases that would eliminate much of the legal framework protecting workers from exploitation.
Echoing anti-government rhetoric that has been a mainstay of Republican stump speeches since the Reagan era, Walker declares his opposition to the so-called “top-down, government-knows-best approach we hear from politicians in Washington.” Yet, in the next sentence of his speech, he describes his anti-government philosophy in very specific terms: “As long as you don’t violate the health and safety of your neighbors – go out and start your own career, build your own business, live your own life.” This framework, where people are free to do as they wish so long as they do not violate others “health” or “safety” is the cornerstone of what Walker labels as “freedom.”
It’s also the cornerstone of an old conception of freedom which stretches back to the laissez faire attitudes of the Gilded Age.
“Health and Safety”
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