Rhoads, Hsieh, and Cushman on Midterm Elections

I came across three very good articles on the topic of Tuesday’s Republican victory (or to be more precise, I should call it Tuesday’s Democratic defeat).

In the first article, Jared Rhoads reported that he voted against Democrats across the board:

Since I am emphatically not a registered member of the Republican party, allow me briefly to explain.

My votes were cast with one goal in mind: to stem the tide toward statism and in so doing buy more time for rational ideas to take hold in the culture. On the surface, that means limited government, lower taxes, lower spending, and less regulation. More deeply, it means individual rights.[1]

In another article, Paul Hsieh advises the Republicans to understand what swept them into office. Their victory is decidedly not a mandate to compromise and deliver “ObamaLite”:

The 2010 vote was a powerful message from Americans rejecting the socialist policies of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid -- including the bailouts, the out-of-control federal spending, the higher taxes, and the nationalized health care scheme.

Voters elected Republicans to halt and reverse these policies -- not compromise to pass watered-down versions of those same bad ideas.[2]

Nor is the victory a green light to impose “social conservative” values:

The Republicans’ electoral rebound has been driven by millions of independent voters like the Colorado small businessman Ron Vaughn, who told the New York Times, “I want the Democrats out of my pocket and Republicans out of my bedroom.”[2]

Finally, at American Thinker, Charlotte Cushman urges the Republicans not to compromise with the Democrats to “find common ground” with policies that are disastrous for America:

We have been taught than compromising is a virtue, that in any conflict, we must concede things to the other side. . .

Finding common ground means that both sides agree on some fundamental principles. By compromising with Obama we would be saying that we agree with some aspects of Socialism. No we don’t. There is no common ground between an ideology of slavery and the ideology of freedom. Rush Limbaugh said the meaning of the election was “No, we don’t want to ‘work together,’ and the American people did not say they want to work with you. The American people said yesterday they want to stop you!”[3]

With an entirely secular meaning, I say, “Amen!”

NOTES

1. Jared Rhoads, “A Republican voter . . . ,” 2 Nov 2010, http://lucidicus.org/editorials.php?nav=20101102a.

2. Paul Hsieh, “GOP: Dance With The One Who Brung You,” 3 Nov 2010, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gop-dance-with-the-one-who-brung-you/?singlepage=true.

3. Charlotte Cushman, “No More Goodie Two-Shoes,” 4 Nov 2010, http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/11/no_more_goodie_twoshoes.html.

Democrat Drubbing

In the aftermath of last night’s evisceration of the Democrats, the biggest whopper I’ve seen so far comes from Tim Kaine, the Democratic National Committee chairman. Here is his explanation for the utter repudiation of the Obama agenda:

“Voters sent a message that change has not happened fast enough.”[1]

What? Change has not happened fast enough? That is what Kaine thinks the drubbing of his party means? Assuming the man is not joking, and giving him the benefit of the doubt that he is not simply a conniving liar trying to rally his pack of true-believers, I am left to conclude that he must be as innocent of facts, logic, and judgment as a new-born babe.

I hasten to add that I am not saying Kaine is stupid, of course. (Accusing public figures of stupidity is the refuge of the Left, which, being so bankrupt of ideas itself, resorts to ad hominem attacks as its primary form of argument.) On the contrary, I believe Tim Kaine is probably a pretty smart guy, and he certainly deserves to be in the company of other very smart people who are equally delusional--like, for instance, Paul Krugman, who thinks the recent expansion of government spending is a myth[2]; Ben Bernanke, who believes that government spending actually stimulates an economy; Harry Reid, who thinks paying income taxes in America is voluntary; and Nancy Pelosi, who thinks people who show up at Tea Party events are sponsored by large corporations.

To think that Democrats lost last night because they were not far enough to the left during the past two years is preposterous. Does Kaine think voters chose Tea Party candidates because they were angry at Democrats for being too “hands off”? Were Democrats kicked out of office because their President seized only General Motors instead of taking over the whole automobile industry like Hugo Chavez would have? Were supporters of Obamacare dumped because there was not enough bureaucracy, regulation, and redistribution of wealth built into the two-thousand-plus pages of the “health care” legislation? It’s completely absurd.

Barack Obama has, more than any politician in my memory, clarified the meaning of the so-called “liberal” agenda.[3] We owe the very existence of the Tea Party to that clarity; there is no way that such a spontaneous movement would have emerged if John McCain had won the election. Ordinary Americans talking about freedom versus socialism, reading Atlas Shrugged, and calling for sweeping cuts in government spending would not be nearly as widespread if there were a Republican in office, even though I think McCain is just about as horrendous a collectivist as Obama is.

The repudiation of the Democratic agenda is encouraging to me in the same limited manner as the Scott Brown election was earlier this year. I expect nothing good from the Republicans themselves--apart from some gridlock that will help retard the march toward statism, a march that has been accelerating alarmingly in the Bush-Obama era. However, I am pleased about the American spirit that the Democratic defeat signals. Evidently, there are still Americans not willing to let the government run their lives.

Hopefully, this will give us time to convince those Americans that they are right to live their own lives and seek their own happiness.

NOTES

1. “G.O.P. Captures House, Not Senate,” New York Times, 3 Nov 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/politics/03elect.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all.

2. Paul Krugman, “Hey, Small Spender,” New York Times, 10 Oct 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman.

3. See John David Lewis, “Obama’s Atomic Bomb: The Ideological Clarity of the Democratic Agenda,” The Objective Standard, Vol. 4, No. 3, http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2009-fall/obamas-atomic-bomb.asp.

UPDATES

I added the Reid and Pelosi examples to the fourth paragraph.

Fresh Agitprop From The DNC

About a month ago, I received an email from the Democratic National Committee with the subject line, “Can we send you a sticker?”[Note 1] The Democrats were showing off their new logo by giving away bumper stickers:

Friend --

So far, nearly 100,000 supporters from around the country have asked us to send them a Democrats sticker with our new look.

Soon, they’ll start turning up on the bumpers of cars and tractor trailers, on cubicle dividers and dorm room walls.

Image from email received from the Democratic National Committee.

The note presented numerous reminders that it is “our shared commitment to change that matters,” and that in electing Barack Obama, “Democrats made a choice to embrace the fight for change.” What such a message lacks in substance it makes up for in revealing the depth--which is to say, the shallowness--of the Democrats’ view of America.

What, according to Democrats, exactly is fundamental to our nation? Individual rights? The freedom to think and act according to one’s judgment? The liberty to live one’s life, keep the property one has earned, and pursue one’s happiness? No. “Change is the inescapable driver of history in the United States.”

In short, a change in the Democratic Party logo is intended to remind us of . . . well, change. To Democrats, it is “change that amplifies our focus on renewing the foundations that make this country great.”[Note 2, emphasis mine on all quotes.]

If Democrats had even the foggiest notion of the foundations that make this country great, there might be a hint of a positive sign in this last sentence, even with its vapid notion that change qua change is a magic tonic that will fix things by “amplifying focus.” (Evidently, about the half the voters of this country are placated by, and even enthusiastically applaud, such meaningless sentences.) But Democrats do not have any idea about what makes the United States great.[Note 3] It is with good reason that phrases like “the inescapable driver of history in the United States” roll naturally off their tongues. It reflects the Democrat's world view: the deterministic historical materialism of Marx and its collectivist notion that class conditions determine the content of human consciousness.

Democrats are driven by the so-called “progressive” ideals that emerged at the turn of the 20th century. (It is probably over-generous to say that modern Democrats are driven by ideas at all because thinking is not required by one who drifts obediently from one feeling to the next.) “Progressivism” is anathema to America. The single fundamental principle underpinning the United States is individual rights--the right to one’s life, liberty, and property. Recognizing that the biggest threat to Americans was not foreigners or criminals but the government itself, the Founders established a government charged with one responsibility: safeguarding individual rights. Democrats have turned this purpose of government on its head. They see the government as the caretaker of its citizens--the provider, the regulator, the leveler. Thus, the government has steadily been transformed from the institution that protects rights to the legal instrument of rights violations.

Image from GlobalResearch.ca.

The thing that is most surprising and disturbing to me about their new logo is the apparent confidence of Democrats that many Americans will swallow their message if it is undisguised. I would have guessed that if Democrats were interested in doing some “damage control” by presenting a new image, they would have tried to conceal their anti-American views by hiding behind a red-white-and-blue, American-as-apple-pie logo--something unambiguously patriotic. This is especially true in the face of a likely drubbing at the polls in November and the emergence of the Tea Party, which is itself the most promising mainstream indicator today that there still exist many Americans that are not yet willing to let the government run their lives.

Image from Wikipedia entry for “Portal: United Nations.”

I am a little stunned to see the Democrats introduce a logo that boldly trumpets the light blue of capitulation and apology. It is the blue that adorns the helmet and beret of United Nations "peacekeepers." It is the blue of the 20-euro note, the blue of the $5 food stamp. It is the blue achieved by diluting the canton of the American flag with the white flag of surrender, a mixture favored by intellectuals. Even Barack Obama’s publicity team seemed to recognize the need to incorporate red, white, and blue into the President’s logo (though the blue is more United Nations blue than American-flag blue, and in my opinion, the design is more evocative of the agrarian, hammer-and-sickle idealism of a peasant or proletarian revolution than the American ideal of individual achievement).

Image from My.BarackObama.com.

Notwithstanding the insistence of intellectuals that try to pin the failures of Democrats on “public relations” problems[Note 4], it is the Democrats that are experts at manipulating public opinion. Indeed, because their ideas are utterly bankrupt, an appeal to envy and resentment is all they have. Leftists--progressives, modern liberals, socialists, and democrats--have a virtual monopoly in the universities and the media. I do not underestimate their ability to gauge public opinion, which is precisely why I am a little concerned not only that they would unveil a slick logo that looks like it would fit neatly on the armband of a new Civilian Service Corps uniform, but that they would think it is a good idea. I hope they are dreadfully wrong.

NOTES

1. I have no idea how I originally got on the Democratic Party mailing list, but I keep it up for the maintenance of that wise saw, “Know thy enemy.” The same goes for the Republican National Committee.

2. All quotes are from an email chain from DNC Chariman Tim Kaine and Jen O’Malley Dillon. I believe Ms. O’Malley Dillon is the executive director of the DNC.

3. In order to not let Republicans off the hook, I will here repeat the point I have made many times. Republicans do not know what makes America great any more than Democrats do if they think the United States is “a Christian nation,” that American values are at root Judeo-Christian values, that God is the source of rights, or that the Ten Commandments inform truth, justice, and the American way.

4. Sara Robinson, “Building the Progressive Brand,” The New Republic, 10 Oct 2010, http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/78278/building-the-progressive-brand.

Vote Democrat and Get Free Stuff

The New York Times published an article online called Young Obama Backers Twist Parents’ Arms.  This reminded of something I’ve noticed over the years: kids almost always root for Democrats.

This would be a fairly obvious and unremarkable observation, except that I think it says something about the Democratic platform in general.  Among the many more severe adjectives that can be applied, one that comes to mind for the welfare state mentality of Democrats is... childish.  

Think about it.  If you stuck a bunch of American kids together and asked them to devise a system of government, they would come up with something closely resembling today’s micro-managing, paternalistic, European-style government.  Everything they could think of would go on the list of government functions: free pizza and ice cream, iPods and cell phones distributed to all kids (plus unlimited text messages), longer recesses and better playgrounds in school, a bigger allowance every week, etc.  In addition to this, depending upon what their embittered teachers or favorite MTV stars happened to be jamming down their throats at the time, children would also demand things like the dismantling of tobacco companies, the impeachment of President Bush, the banning of land mines (whatever those are), the elimination of fossil fuels, the severe scolding of the mean people in Darfur (wherever that is), and capital punishment for people who do not recycle their empty milk jugs.

In short, children, left to their own devices to construct a government, would essentially come up with the Democratic Party platform.  

Of course, by “left to their own devices,” I do not mean that they are to be cast into a Lord of the Flies, deserted island scenario, in which everything must be started from scratch.  My thought experiment here is assuming that the kids are left in a familiar setting, the only one they’ve ever known, in which mommy and daddy are there to provide the pizza, iPods, allowance, and anything else they demand as usual.  After all, the resources for their government must come from somewhere.

This outlook was expressed very well by a certain 14-year old named Rebecca Tilsen, who according to the National Youth Rights Association, gave this testimony before a Minnesota House subcommittee, in defense of lowering the voting age to include children:

“If 16-year-olds are old enough to drink the water polluted by the industries that you regulate,… to breathe the air ruined by garbage burners that government built,… to walk on the streets made unsafe by terrible drugs and crime policies,… to live in poverty in the richest country in the world,…to get sick in a country with the worst public health-care programs in the world,… to attend school districts that you underfund, then 16-year olds are old enough to play a part in making them better [i.e. old enough to vote].”

In case it wasn’t clear, that’s the United States that she is speaking of, not Cuba or Venezuela.  Is there any doubt that kids in the twelve- to eighteen-year-old range would vote overwhelmingly for Democrats?  Miss Tilsen’s sentiment could hardly have been better expressed by Ted Kennedy himself - or by either of the two Democratic candidates for President.