Posted on 11/21/2004 7:08:14 PM PST by Former Military Chick
According to The New York Times, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, reflecting on her party's recent losses in the presidential, Senate and House elections, asked: ``How did a party that is filled with people with values -- and I am a person with values -- get tagged as the party without values?''
As one who was raised a Democrat and became a Republican 10 years ago, I would like to answer Napolitano's question as honestly as she posed it.
Napolitano, your party does indeed have many people with values in it. But the Democratic Party is no more representative of the average Democrat's values than the National Council of Churches is of the average Protestant's values. Both are far to the left of their membership.
Here is the Democratic Party as most Americans, including this John F. Kennedy liberal -- a New York City-born and -raised, Jewish, Ivy League-educated intellectual who lives in Los Angeles -- see it.
To most Americans, Michael Moore is a Marxist who has utter contempt for most of his fellow Americans, who goes abroad and tells huge audiences how stupid and venal his country is, and in his dishonest propaganda film, portrays the American military as callous buffoons. Yet, this radical was given the most honored seat at the Democratic Party convention in Boston, next to former President Jimmy Carter.
To most Americans, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are race-baiting demagogues. Yet they are heroes to the Democratic Party. Most Americans do not see their country as the bigoted and racist nation regularly depicted by both black and white Democratic leaders.
To most Americans, a man who wears women's clothing to work is a pathetic person in need of psychotherapy. To the Democratic Party, he is a man whose cross-dressing is merely another expression of multiculturalism. The California legislature, controlled by Democrats, passed a law prohibiting employers from firing a man who shows up to work wearing women's clothing.
To most Americans, Eminem is a vulgar nihilist who poisons young Americans' minds. To John Kerry, he was a man whose anti-Bush hate video was worthy of endorsement.
To most Americans, obscenity-filled evenings should be restricted to R-rated films or a Las Vegas comedy act, not a major party's fund raiser attended by its candidates for U.S. president. To Democrats, those who object to such evenings are regarded as judgmental, hypocritical and narrow minded.
To most Americans, Hollywood stars are regarded as terrific to watch in films but also as narcissistic ingrates when, between private jet trips to Cuba and Cannes, they express their contempt for traditional America. That the Democrats have a veritable monopoly on support from folks such as Sean Penn and Robert ''Castro-is-a-great-leader'' Redford may give Democrats a heady feeling, but for tens of millions of Americans, it merely reinforces their belief that the Democratic Party shares Hollywood's values.
To most Americans, the American military is not only heroic; it is regarded as more important to safeguarding freedom than any other human institution, including the ACLU, the United Nations or the university, to cite three major Democratic Party affiliates. To virtually the entire Left, which includes the Democratic Party, the military is, at best, a necessary evil. Otherwise, the overriding doctrine is ''Make love, not war.'' That is why Harvard still refuses to allow ROTC training -- and it is unlikely that either of the Massachusetts senators even finds that wrong, let alone as reprehensible as most Americans do.
To most Americans, gays are fellow Americans who happen to be homosexual and who should be accorded the same respect that any fellow American is accorded. But most Americans also believe that America should retain the millennia-old definition of marriage as man-woman. They regard liberal judges who take it upon themselves to redefine marriage with contempt. And these judges are identified with the Democrats.
Whatever their views on abortion and abortion rights, the vast majority of Americans view the abortion of a viable fetus/baby (partial-birth abortion) as immoral. Kerry and his fellow Democrats repeatedly voted against a ban on this practice.
Napolitano, I hope that this short list answers your question about how it is that your party has gotten tagged as ''the party without values.'' Indeed, the real question is: How has this party retained so many people who have traditional American values?
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, columnist and author of four books, including Think a Second Time.
©2004 Creators Syndicate
OK, it is down right fun!
Democrats' Axis of Evil is Religion, National Defense and Tax Cuts.
Hollywood, the ACLU, American United for Separation of Church and State, and liberal activist judges represent Democrats' mainstream. John Kerry's "I was an altar boy" appeal cannot overcome the party's well known hatred of organized religion.
Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, John Dean, John Kerry's slander of Vietnam Vets, and anti-war protesters form the bulk of the Democrat party. John Kerry's lame salute and four months in Vietnam are tranparent attempts to cover Democrat disdain for the defense of America.
Characterizing universal tax cuts as "for the rich," John Kerry's massive tax hiking record, and Hillary Clinton's effort to nationalize healthcare demonstrate Democrats' desire for larger government and higher taxes. Nobody believed Kerry when he suggested further middle-class tax cuts.
Democrats hate Pat Robertson, Condoleezza Rice, and George Bush, and comparatively ignore Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Kim Jong Il.
For Democrats to be competitive, they have to actually change their minds and demonstrate that they believe Relgion can be moral, National Defense is legitimate, and Tax Cuts spur economic growth.
Until then, Republican majorities will grow as resonable Democrats join us.
Of course you and your DNC colleagues have values. Just like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin had values.
Prager says it all here. Gov. Napolitano is not the only one who needs to read this.
Do you think their little tiny brains can comprehend it?
the new dims talking point: use the word "value" at least 3 times in every sentence."
Excellent article, with many good points! I wonder how many democrats will switch to the Republican party after they've seen what their party really represents. (I can dream, can't I?)
I will join you, nothing wrong about dreaming.
Democrats increase the public tax load while paying off their voting constituency.
First of all, it's a misconception to suggest that people regard Democrats as lacking values. It's not the ABSENCE of values that alientates voters; it's the values the Democrats DO possess.
And, to answer the question, while Democrats increasingly believe in things like gay marriage, abortion, phony women's "rights," keeping minorities on the plantation, and failed entitlements, most of America decidedly does NOT believe in those things. So the Democrat elite are completely out of touch with what their consumers want.
Does it surprise you that Democrats lose? That surprise alone should speak volumes. IF -- and that's a big "if" for a Democrat -- you're listening.
Hating America is one of their values and it turns people off.
Actually the brief answer is that the demonRATs have been tagged as the party without values because their debasing of the discussion of virtues by using the sociologist/Nietzschian 'values' has partially backfired.
Instead of Americans who have a traditional conception of VIRTUE buying into 'values' as something which can be defined, chosen by the individural, redefined and 'transvalued', 'values' has become a synonym for 'virtues' among those who are not careful about language.
To sum it all up the Democrats have become the GAY party.
Napolitano is a carpetbagger whose beliefs are in sync with those of the democratic party. her motives are suspect and her apirations are obvious. fortunately, her constituents are aware of her political stunts to attract votes. one of her first embarrassing stunts was to change the name of squaw pek mountain to an indian woman's name who was the mother of illegitimate kids at a young age and who abandoned them to enlist the army. she was killed in an ambush and to solicit the indian vote napolitano illegally changed the mountain name. she is an opportunist to the hilt!
Ok then, Janet.....does THIS answer your question? I doubt it...... they'll never get it!
Bump!
Dennis Prager is sensible, sensitive, wise and always relevant I read his columns every week. Values, mores, sensibilities watered down euphemisms for morality, I've been hearing since the late sixties. By then the cracks were beginning to show that would ultimately bring down the late great edifice of the Catholic Church in the U.S. I see it now in retrospect in the foibles of the Marist Brother where I went to High School. I take great inspiration from reading Dennis' profound understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
It is my belief that the values Democrats claim to have are all facades designed to win voters and they do not really have any core values other than that of gaining power. That they now claim to have values shows when they could not do so before the election shows that they are only claiming them now to gain an advantage. They never speak of their true values.
I am not sure I agree with everything Prager says here. However I would add that most Americans tolerate gays but want to keep marriage protected, and being called intolerant, hateful, stupid bigots for believing so by demcrats is a big values gap.
Great OPED. I can sum it up thusly: When you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. When you associate with and support valuless organizations and people in order to get a few votes, you get painted with the same brush they do. Deservedly so.
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