Paul Krugman points us to a speech by Paul Ryan:
Just last week, the President told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are in favor of, quote, “dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance.” Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care?As Krugman points out:
[C]riticism of policy proposals is not the same thing as ad hominem attacks. If I say that Paul Ryan’s mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries, that’s ad hominem. If I say that his plan would hurt millions of people and that he’s not being honest about the numbers, that’s harsh, but not ad hominem.It's ridiculous that policy proposals by the GOP are so bad that even describing them accurately is considered an ad hominem, you're only allowed to criticize when they get something factually wrong or say something stupid but never should you ever say something bad about how eliminating pollution caps increases pollution.
And it's not just a thing on the right, even Krugman says it's "harsh" when someone criticizes a bad policy.
Well news flash, it's neither "petty" nor is it "harsh," what's harsh, are the consequences people have to suffer as the result of bad policy, the fact that politicians don't like to hear about them doesn't make it a bad thing to point them out.
