Digby makes a very good point about the real world effects of conservative propaganda:

I’m convinced that one of the mistakes we’ve made over the years is not telling enough stories of real people who were affected by the conservative movement’s deregulation fervor. When they can keep it all abstract and clean it sounds great. It’s not so impressive when you see the human results of their “ideology.”

With that in mind, consider Senator Orrin Hatch’s (R-Wackaloon) claim that Utah doesn’t need the stimulus money (“Utah is going to get by fine whether we get that money or not.”) in light of what is actually happening in Utah (‘on the ground’):

…Utah is being forced to cut back on services in ways that will have real harms. For example, they’re eliminating 90 beds at the Utah State Hospital, where the state’s most severely mentally ill are housed. The right likes to talk about waste and bureaucrats, but I’m not sure I understand how letting dozens of severely mentally ill people wander around the state is going to lay the foundations for long-term growth.

This is why no one should take the conservative movement seriously. There was a time when conservative offered serious policies. Ok, they were pretty daffy ideas*, but they actually tried to solve problems. But now, all we have are Peter Pan conservatives: anything’s possible if you wish hard enough. I’m open to hearing different ideas about how to solve problems, but they just deny the existence of various problems.

It would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so awful.

Because if we help severely mentally ill people then the terrorists win.

*As one loyal reader notes whenever she hears about ‘conservatives no longer being the party of ideas’, they, in fact, have lots of ideas. The problem is that most of these ideas suck.