APRIL 1, 2009 --

The Times recently announced 5% reductions in salary for non-union employees. LPR thinks that the paper would be more effectively aided if it lowered its newsstand prices: $1.50 weekly and $4.00 Sunday. Hmm. Is the Times waiting for a bailout from the ruling Democrats?

LPR offers this definition of “bailout” – government-required payment from the people for items they choose, in the context of free enterprise, to pass on.

Accordingly, LPR disagrees with conservatives who decry Democrats for bringing socialism to the United States. The expansion of government power into the (now formerly) private sector seems, to LPR,, more an updated form of corporate statism.

Corporate statism is, obviously, an assault on liberty. It continues, in the view of LPR, to promote the anti-democratic concept of government of, by and for the insiders. Rather than running about shouting “Gevalt, the socialists are coming!” conservatives might refer to the Obama Administration in an “Animal Farm” context.

This is not to say that Republicans are any more populist (government of, by and for the people) than are the Obamians. Newt Gingrich reportedly has urged various factions of the GOP to cooperate, not carp. This, to LPR, is merely a call on the GOP to coalesce into one large clique in place of its several intra-party cliques.

As a political party, Republicans are no less arrogant, no less distant from the people, LPR believes, than are Democrats. And if the country prefers neo-aristocratic rule by a party of self-promoting, arrogant, power-hungry insiders, why turn to Republicans when Democrats have become so skilled in camouflaging their neo-aristocratic mindset with a veneer of faux-democracy.