Replies

Friends, Freepers, Lurkers, Newbies, Trolls, Americans all, attend: For I shall for once be serious.

I have spent much of my free time at other sites, more left-leaning than centrist, but where I have some respect and some decent relations. I have been arguing with them non-stop, and it has been crazy-making.

Here's a (close) parody of how it goes:

Leftist: Dell makes great buses!
Me: Buses? Um, last I checked, Dell doesn't manufacture buses or any other of their subcomponents - they purchase all of that from subcontractors and then assemble a damn good computer...
Leftist: Computers? Man, you are ignorant! Everyone knows Dell makes buses. You know, the things people ride around in? It must hurt to be as dumb as you...
Me: Buses... o-o-o-o-kayyy, look: Dell Inc makes home and business computers. They make no conveyances of any sort.
Leftist: You just can't tolerate a different opinion.
Me: this has nothing to do with tolerance. An opinion contradicted by facts is worthless.
Leftist: You don't have any facts, and CBS says...
Me: Look, pal, try to do a little fact-checking. Here - go to this website, yeah, that's right, DELL INC's official website and get the facts straight from the source...
Leftist: That doesn't prove anything!
Me: It proves Dell makes computers...
Leftist: But they also make buses
Me: Holy cripes. Don't you think they'd have buses listed in their catalog if they made 'em?!? Geesh! How about you contact Dell and ask THEM if they make buses?
Leftist: You are a mean person!
Me: No, I'm just stating facts.
Leftist: Not only are you a mean intolerant person, but I know that XP-windows on Dell buses have superior diopter and clarity, making the scenery o so lovely as you ride along...
Me: oh, dear lord...

I'm not kidding - arguing with Leftists is just like this.

Now that the election is over, and the people have spoken, one might be given to believe that the clarity of the results would compel a new birth of clarity in the thinking of Democrats.
Don’t you believe it.
The Left, both on high and down in the grassroots, is convulsed with brushfires, tummult, strife, backstabbing, second-guessing, and desperate shrieking – but not careful, introspective, fact and reality based thought.

They are even so deluded as to believe they, the minority, can dictate to the victor how to divide the spoils.
Yes, they believe this. It is not simply a political ploy (though perhaps it is, among their powerful).

I now purpose to lecture the Left, illustrate a few simple facts, gloat just a little bit, and in so doing force them to stop and take a good hard look at themselves.

Dear DNC,

We won.
Resoundingly.
We presented our case to the American people and they chose us over you.

You FAILED.

We have retained the Presidency, and we have enlarged our majorities in the House and Senate.
We have booted your obstructionist Minority Leader.
We scored a 3.5million vote majority in the popular vote and of course took the requisite number of Electoral College votes... and then some.

You are in NO POSITION to demand a damned thing from us.

Your campaign, beginning in November of 2000, was the cause of the division in this country.

You have played fast and loose with the facts.
You have done everything in your power to sow discord and paranoia in the electorate.
You have, with your every utterance, paraded your contempt for the common American in full and insulting view of those you thought to woo.
You have indulged in unsavory and illegal campaign tactics.
YOU are the ones who engaged in voter intimidation and mob violence.
YOU are the whores of special interests and egomaniacal billionaires, in turn pimping your "core constituency" however you see fit in your bid to regain power and national relevance.

What offends isn't so much the cynical immorality with which you swagger abroad under your load of hypocrisy, as it is the calculated indecency with which you see fit to project upon us and our actions all your own lawlessness, your rank idiocy, and all the sins of your habitual and base nature, and THEN have the unmitigated GALL to demand of us - once your horrid program has come to naught - to then DEMAND of us that we kowtow to your bruised vanity!

CLEAN OUT YOUR OWN HOUSE before you tell us to muck our stables.

I much prefer our stables to your house: Our stables are not quite so whiff.

I have only one thing to add: The mainstream of this country has been DRIVEN to the right not by fear so much as by aggrieved annoyance and distaste. The Left pushed, promised "only this far and no further", and then pushed for more, for decades. The mainstream began to balk in the early 1990's and the Left failed to get the message. They instead grew even more aggressive.

The mainstream is FED UP. I am not saying they are either entirely right or entirely wrong. I am merely saying they are FED UP.

The Mass. Supreme Court's actions, followed by the lunacy of San Francisco's mayor, were the impetus behind the "gay marriage ban"(sic) state-con amendments, and one of several similarly self-inflicted prime causes of the drubbing the DNC suffered this week. For those Leftists and self-styled “Liberals” unhappily reading this: Yes, kids, I -and many others- warned you there would be significant backlash.
We were correct in this analysis in every respect.
Deal with it.

The Left has two ways of doing so, in my opinion.
1. They can descend ever further into omphaloskeptic narcissism and sociopolitical irrelevancy, or...
2. They can come to terms with the fact that they have gotten all that they are going to get in terms of compromise from the mainstream for at least a generation, and -in coming to terms with this REALITY- cease kicking hornets nests and work to earn a good reputation as a LOYAL opposition.

I hope the latter option is chosen, though I am not particularly hopeful for a quick, clean, viable solution.
Such a solution would presuppose a vital core of the DNC, and I am at a loss to determine what the "core" of the DNC really IS. IS there a core? If there isn’t… how best can one be established from within?

Some thoughts…

Once those on the Left are through with devouring their young, they need to do the following, each and every single one of them, as individuals:
- 1. Read the Constitution, as written, unannotated and without mountains of their favorite distaff case-law.
- 2. Go and get their hands dirty, doing real work, where success and failure are measured in real empirical terms of right and wrong: Does it work or does it not work? Does it fit or does it not fit? Does it live or does it die? If I make a mistake in judgement, how many people get injured and how badly? Do the customers buy it or reject it? Do I have a paycheck or do I not? Etc... that sort of thing. I mean they must undergo a LITERAL submersion in practical reality.
- 3. After two years of surviving by the sweat of their own brows, they should then REREAD the Constitution.

After doing all this, they should sit awhile in thought.
Find their own individual real political centers.
THEN, only then, should they seek others of like mind.

I posit that the results would be startling.
And, ultimately, healthy for whatever succeeds the current DNC, healthy for the GOP, and healthy for the Repubic.

That IS supposed to be what we ALL prize above all other concerns, yes?

I do not believe that a party in unchallengeable power can long remain healthy. The Right has a plethora of its own cancers, and lacking stiff competition for the mainstream it shall surely succumb to them... taking the nation I love along for the ride.

Choose wisely, o battered Left.
I beg you.

Of course, if you on the Left INSIST on behaving like heartbroken teenaged girls, you have an alternative process to pursue. I don’t recommend it, but out of fairness and in a desire for balance I shall provide it for you:

Official DNC-Issued Post-Loss Marching Orders:
1. Post something idiotic on FR
2. Sit down in bath tub
3. Put the muzzle in your mouth
4. Squeeze the trigger

Pardon me while I step back into my role as one of the few non-troll Democrats posting on FR.

I really liked your post. You're thinking and I always appreciate that. I think that your plan is generally sound, although I'd suggest we don't have a few years to wait for introspection.

The problem I have is with your premises. I agree with the sentiments presented, but I see two errors in your logic: (1) your logic assumes that there are enough (conservative) adults left in the Democratic party to make the changes that you suggest. (2)You also imply that the Democratic party is truly run by the rank-and-file, that is to say in a "democratic" fashion.

I would suggest that you re-examine your premises in these respects. Understand that you don't yet have the advantage of being an active and partisan Democrat being able to look at what the reality from the inside.

So let's talk about the first error in your logic as I see it. I have to hand it to the GOP, their efforts over time to woo conservatives over to the GOP have been remarkably successful. Too successful, actually, and the buzzards are now coming home to roost. There are very few conservative Democrats left, and they're marginalized within the party hierarchy. Numbers do matter to a certain extent. And while I do believe that 1 conservative versus 3 radical leftists constitutes a fair fight, 1 versus 6 is a losing battle. And that's about where we're at in the Democratic party. The conservatives and the people who are willing to step up to bat are simply too few and too marginalized.

So while we're talking about the Democratic party cleaning it's own house, precisely who is going to do it? The folks over at DU? Nancy Pelosi?

Secondly, I believe that your logic implies that the Democratic party is run as a more or less democratic organization. On one level, it certainly is. That is to say the local party organizations are democratically elected, the leadership at the state level is democratically elected, etc. But on another and more important level, that's not the case. Again, I think you'd have to have an inside view to readily understand what's going on on a couple of different levels.

The cynical version of the golden rule is that "he who has the gold makes the rules." The "gold" (i.e. organization and financing) for the Democratic party is not being provided by the Democratic party rank and file for the most part. It's being provided by organizations such as moveon, the trial lawyers, George Soros, etc. People who have a more economic interest in the outcome. The election of 2004 was run and financed by outside entities. It had to be. The rank and file organization of the Democratic party is in a state of disarray, and I doubt that they could have put together a credible campaign.

Welcome to post campaign finance reform America. The Democratic party still exists, but I wonder if it's future is going to be as more of a ceremonial organization that coronates the candidates that the MSM, Michael Moore, and moveon want to run the country.

Let me finish this too long of a post on an optimistic note. Lest my analysis seem too pessimistic, I should point out that I'm personally very, very optimistic and see great opportunities for the future. With large change comes large opportunity. And we just got a large change last Tuesday.