"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

Remember that great line from The Gipper?

It’s taken me longer than usual to write this column, because laughter interrupted me.

Excuse me?

The AIG bailout showed conservatism to be a fraud. Come right in and make yourself at home, Mr. Marx. From what I have read, AIG was nationalized because everyone was looking at a worldwide 1929.

My mother was 17 in 1929, and she told me that people were literally jumping from windows. She didn’t remember how many suicides there were that day, but she did remember the newspaper and radio reports.

There wasn’t unemployment insurance, Social Security, minimum wage, 40-hour workweek, or any other part of the safety net we now have. That would not become a reality until Franklin Roosevelt, a (gasp) liberal!

If you were broke, you were on your own. In other words, conservatism.

Here’s Roosevelt’s socialist plan, the Second Bill of Rights:

- A job with a living wage
- Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
- Homeownership
- Medical care
- Education
- Recreation

You can see how subversive it was. I mean, treating humans with dignity – what nerve! That’s clearly a Communist plot. And Reagan, and then W were taking us right back to 1929, and said with a perfectly straight face that it was good for us...

Just like Iraq, which has gone from bad to Hobbesian.