The chicken-hawks have not come home to roost. What I mean by that is the same scaredy-fatcats who so virulently violently believe in the way of harm, as long as other people and other people’s children are in its way, have been remarkably tightassed-lipped on the mega bailout of that mega (capitalist) church, Bear Stearns.

Yes, there are no atheists in a foxhole (I always thought that might be cuz they’d been jailed as conscientious objectors, as an aside I’ve always thought of myself as an unconscientious (ori izat unconscious) objector), there are also no conservatives in the trenches of economic philosophy when the invisible hand of Adam Smith is outstretched – for a handout.

Now get this, I’m for the action taken by the Fed this week. Why. I’m a liberal, that’s why, and this was a liberal action. In fact, all “action” is liberal. There is no such thing as a conservative (or conserveyourightative) action. Conservatism with its strange brew of animal superstition, fate and bully fetish, conveyor belt lurchings on the road that must be most traveled (shortsightedness prevents you from looking ahead, suspicion of reason prevents you from looking at a map), describes all action, personal as well as public, as subject to the sways and swings of greater tides than the will of man. In fact to conservatism, where there is action, there is always, horrors, mistakes. In their radical theology only God gets to make ‘em, not people.

Yet, here it was, a thundering, cavalry-charge, of yes, government, to the rescue. Where were the popes of the free-market gospel? Strangely silent (actually not such a bad thing), because well they had to be. It was their money that needed to be protected and suddenly, a safety net, didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

That’s cuz it’s not a bad idea, and this is what is important. The safety net is there when you fall off the trapeze, so you can get back on the trapeze. (Either that is incredibly beautifully said (hello Obama!) or incredibly stoopid, I can’t really tell.) It is not there to lie entangled up in. It is there during a crisis to alleviate the crisis. Conservatives for too long have gotten away with the canard (quick, quick, he’s getting away with the canard, chase him) that the safety net creates the crisis. As they got their welfare check this week, I hope they pondered on this.