QOTD: Paul Ryan
by digby
Can you see what's wrong with this picture? I knew that you could:
Ryan cautioned that people should allow the investigation into 18-year-old Michael Brown's death at the hands of a white police officer to run its course before drawing conclusions. The Justice Department is conducting its own inquiry in addition to a state investigation, but the Wisconsin Republican cautioned against allowing the federal government to take on a large oversight role in Ferguson.
"There is no problem with the federal government having a role," he said. "But in all of these things, local control, local government, local authorities who have the jurisdiction, who have the expertise, who are actually there are the people who should be in the lead."
Because as we've seen demonstrated repeatedly over the past week or so, local government is always pure and good and perfect.
In fact, let's leave the police chief of Ferguson, with all his "expertise" in the "lead." He did just a heckuva job. And hey, the Governor has been a real pip as well. If this hasn't been a perfect illustration of the fallacy of local supremacy it's hard to see what is.
This conservative fetish for "local government" has always stemmed from their desire to reclaim the "freedom" those southern towns used to have when they were allowed to handle their race "problems" as they saw fit. Any citizen who's ever been exposed to local and state government knows very well that the idea it's un-corrupted with greed and petty ambition is ludicrous. The fact that Ryan doesn't understand that the mantra of "local control" in this situation is ridiculous is yet another sign that he's so ideologically programmed he honestly doesn't know how to think in any other way.
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