Sumner's Perfectly Obtuse Sympathy for Dennis Hastert

     Only someone as lacking in irony as Sumner actually feels that Dennis Hastert  of all people is the unfair victim of American Puritanism run amok! 

     "Poor Dennis Hastert.  He picked the wrong country to get born into."

     "1.  He picked a Puritan state in a Puritan country with a higher age of consent than any European country, save Ireland, Cyprus and Turkey."

    "2.  He picked a country where (according to Politico) the GOP cares so little for the lives of blacks and gays that it won’t lift a finger to stop a needle/HIV epidemic until it starts hitting Red State voters."

      "3.  He picked a country where the Dems think it’s a crime to frequently withdraw $5000 in cash from your own bank account, and use the cash for perfectly legal activities."

      "4.  He picked a country where voters have so much faith in law enforcement that they make it a crime to lie to police, even to cover up an embarrassing personal scandal."

    "5.  He picked a country where people are obsessed over any sex where there is a “power imbalance.”

      "PS.  Attention commenters; I’m offering no editorial comment, just describing things as they are.  If you don’t like the post, don’t blame me, change America."

     http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29494#comments

      Yes, poor Hastert who led the impeachment furor against Clinton in the 90s for:

    Lying about an embarrassing affair with Monica Lewinsky that all the GOPers said had an egregious power imbalance. 

      How exactly would Hastert change America when he and his GOP friends led this Puritan coup? I mean, Hastert isn't a victim of Puritan America, he is Puritan America; of course part of being a Puritan this is that hypocrites like him eventually turn out to be those 'who are most with sin.'

    That was the point of Christ when he said 'He who is without sin, cast the first stone.'

  

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/denny-hastert-this-is-man-who-voted-to.html

    Puritans always turn out to be even more 'with sin'' than those they castigate and it's certainly  proven to be true with all Clinton's Republican accusers. Think about it:

    Hastert was the 3rd GOP Speaker of the House to lead the impeachment fiasco against Clinton. Newt Gingrich, then Bob Livingston, finally Hastert. All of them turned out to have worse personal peccadilloes in their own closet than what they accused Clinton of. 

    Is Sumner unaware that Hastert was the GOP leader during Clinton's impeachment? He certainly sounds like it. 

     By the way, Sumner tries to make 2 and 3 symmetrical, but they aren't. What he said about the GOP is true; but it's not 'the Democrats' who say that what he did with his bank transactions was a crime, but a federal grand jury. 

     Sumner may think what Hastert did was legal  but that's because he apparently is as ignorant of federal bank laws as he is of the fact that Hastert is the greatest Puritan phony of them all-I mean is there any greater cliche than a phony going on moral crusades in public and then turning out to live in a bigger glass house than anyone? Here he is leading the American Values brigade and secretly he's a homosexual who took advantage of a male student. Again, he's a classic cliche. 

     "J. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker in the history of the U.S. House, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges that he violated banking laws in a bid to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed person to cover up “past misconduct.”

     "Hastert, who has been a high-paid lobbyist in Washington since his 2007 retirement from Congress, schemed to mask more than $950,000 in withdrawals from various ac­counts in violation of federal banking laws that require the disclosure of large cash transactions, according to a seven-page indictment delivered by a grand jury in Chicago."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/05/28/former-house-speaker-dennis-hastert-indicted/

     So it wasn't 'the Democrats' it was something called banking laws. I know he says he doesn't know much about the financial system-which he seems to help him better understand the monetary system to hear him tell it-but to not even understand that there are banking laws-talk about a bridge too far?

   As usual he shows himself to be a transparent conservative phony-I'm sure he wasn't saying 'Poor Bill Clinton' in the 90s. 

   P.S. Even Sumner's last line that he's 'offering no editorial comment' is a lie-if it isn't a lie he doesn't know what an editorial comment is. The very suggestion that it's necessary to 'change America'  is an editorial comment-by it's a nature, of course, an editorial comment may be true or false.

   While I'm not a fan of American Puritianism, Hastert is not going to be the one to 'change it other than to offer up an example of how repugnant it is. Sumner himself, is not part of the solution but the problem. It's like when he talks about immigration reform or drug legalization-which are good things in my view-but then act as if there is no difference between the parties on these issues: if you want either done you should vote for the Democrats. 

   It's like someone voting for Jeb Bush because he sounds more liberal or reasonable on immigration reform: as everyone from Krugman to Greg Sargent point out, these days it's about the party not the man. 

  While I do believe that Jeb's talk about immigration reform is sincere-as both his brother and father were-it doesn't make any difference in today's GOP party: they did not let W have immigration reform even though he wanted it-indeed, within the W. Bush White House, 'amnesty' itself was not a dirty word-but it didn't matter; today's party is reflexively anti immigration. 

  So to speak for immigration reform but not against the GOP as Sumner does is ineffectual and pointless. It shows he's either a hypocrite or hasn't thought it through properly.

  Bottom line: if anyone's going to 'change America' it sure want be Scott. His entire Market Monetarism project is just old wine, new bottles. 

   UPDATE: Sumner is really taking what happened to Hastert to heart-again where was he in the 90s when Hastert was leading the Puritans with Ptichforks through Congress?

    "If we care so much about people who choose to conduct their affairs in currency, then why was Dennis Hastert arrested?"

    http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29478

    Again, Scott because he broke federal banking laws-that's why he was arrested. If you want to change the banking laws just to get your buddy off, write your Congressman. 

   We could debate the wisdom of these particular banking laws, but in this case they proved quite effective as Hastert was engaged in a crime-paying a blackmailer. 

    Sumner is so bent out of shape here-does he know Dennis Hastert personally?-that he seems ready to do away with not just all banking laws but all perjury laws as well-all to save the disgraced Puritan Speaker. 

    I can't think of any better way to change American society for the better can you?