America First, Unless That's What Obama Would Want

Over at Vox's evil twin with the goatee that is The Federalist, David Harsanyi has suddenly decided that nothing is less patriotic and American than being an American company paying taxes to the American government, and that liberals and President Obama are probably fascists for suggesting that they do so.

Jonathan Alter at the Daily Beast has an idea that will infuse the president’s “economic patriotism” rhetoric with some bite: Compel companies to take “loyalty oaths” to prove their patriotism.

You may find this suggestion a little creepy, maybe even a little fascistic; but Alter says that “it’s time for red-blooded Americans to take matters into our own hands.”

And by taking the matter into “our” hands, Alter means that President Obama would unilaterally bar any company that practices “inversion” – corporate merging with foreign firms to save on U.S. tax bills – from doing business with the federal government. Companies that follow the administration requirements will earn a government seal of approval. If you act “un-American” and fail to recognize your “real interests” and those of the United States – which are, naturally, indistinguishable from the president’s agenda – you will be shunned and your business punished.

You will be powerless to stop it.

You know, except for the part where if you don't like what the executive branch is doing, you get a chance every four years to elect a new one.

It's funny, for six years now people have been slagging President Obama for not putting America's interests first.  When he does, by making sure companies in the US pay taxes to the US government to help fund our roads and bridges and power grids and water mains, infrastructure that these companies use to provide and transport goods and services, it's "fascistic".

Of course, The Federalist thinks any Democrat is a fascist, so that's par for the course.  Harsanyi's conclusion:

As far as patriotism, it’s typically defined as a devotion to one’s country and a concern for its welfare. While people are free to argue that Tea Party types misunderstand or misappropriate the Constitution, at the very least they’ve hitched themselves to a patriotism that is tangentially related to some form of recognizable American idealism. If Alter is right, and our “deepest sense of who we are” really entails whining about tax receipts of multinational companies, then we’re probably in bigger trouble than I think.

"We're libertarians, but we think the Tea Party is pretty okay."  What a shocker, right?  It's funny how the gang at The Federalist regularly lands in the Tea Party GOP camp time and time again, right?