LA VIE BULLSHIT. Ann Althouse does one of those piquant posts (so clever, she is) where she affects to challenge Rush Limbaugh, who criticizes Nancy Pelosi for offering health care to artists and other parasites. It has nothing to do with anything (Pelosi is talking about employed people, not starry wannabees), but the boobs Althouse has cultivated for years react with the expected Ah hates me a art-faggitt! ("The only thing at which [art] succeeds is polishing the egos of the elite") responses.

My favorite among those:

I write, and I hope to be published and I hope to make decent money... but I'd love to do a thousand other creative things I'm not very good at, if I could afford to do them. The writer's life... an artists life... who wouldn't find long days of unfettered creativity delightful?

Oh, deary, you have no idea.

UPDATE. Further down it gets even better:

Even thick-skulled Hollywood types have been able to weasel in on the fun and turn it to their advantage. In order to be considered a person of brilliance and great compassion they simply suck up to some bullshit Lib cause. Nothing says "I'm a deep-thinking artiste" like getting the rubber stamp of approval from some shit-for-brains organization like Greenpeace or PETA. Blasting coke up your nose while smacking around strippers and driving 140 miles per hour is totally cool as long as you wear the right ribbon on your lapel.

Where does one get jobs like that? Oh right -- via the free market! I'm still unsure about Greenpeace's and PETA's roles in it, though; perhaps commenters can enlighten me. I could go for a gig like that, and I'm willing to wear ribbons.

UPDATE 2: Dan Riehl gets in on it: "We owe, not only our modern living standards, but our political freedom to capitalism... If the world were to run off to create mostly bad art, who is it that will be running the engine to subsidize it?" Yeah, you airy-fairies, some of us man up and blog, like Adam Smith intended. Hit my "Make a Donation" button and help keep capitalism alive!

This whole thing is giving me a retro thrill. I really thought even the denser types had stopped reacting to the Damned Artist of the Day as if he were their own no-good son who needs to cut out all the nonsense and go work at the plant like his daddy. Now the laughter is back, and every day is Footloose!