Bruce Bartlett, who's almost twice my age, and apparently had some sort of "important" job back when I was in grade school, says I'm "living in the past" for talking about the transcontinental railroad:
Ron Paul's favorite website attacks the transcontinental railroad. Way to stay relevant, guys. http://t.co/dykGcDh2Nb — Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) March 11, 2014@BruceBartlett @delong The 19th century railroads were the original 2Big2Fail corp-welfare monsters. Is it so awful to say so, Bruce? — Chris Faille (@ccfaille) March 11, 2014@ccfaille If you like living in the past, think no current issues are worth bothering with. — Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) March 11, 2014Wow. This is a guy who calls himself a historian. I guess that fact that Obama and other pols still invoke the railroads as a justification for modern infrastructure projects escapes Bartlett. Or perhaps he's just mad that someone would point out that it's a bad thing to steal from the taxpayers and give to politically-well-connected corporations.
Or he may just be still on his anti-Mises Institute/anti Lew Rockwell crusade, which recently included his nutty about Peter Klein's article on budget default.
Also, Bruce, don't look now, but there's a whole teevee show about the transcontinental railroad on AMC right now called Hell on Wheels, It's actually quite popular, and a fourth season is likely. And even though a popular television show would never, ever have any effect on modern ideologies or modern politics, I'm going to review it for Mises Daily. I look forward to reading your tweets about it.
