Posted on 11/06/2004 5:21:42 PM PST by King Prout
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
thank you.
do you see a way forward?
One which is not merely good for conservatism, but which is ultimately good for America as a whole?
I know, that's kind of an unfair question, as we here tend to think that "conservatism" is the best thing since sliced bread, but...
Many Americans look at the GOP and see brutes, religious nuts, etc...
They are not correct, or at least are miles from being entirely correct. However, this is what they see. Also, they are of the belief that society has "responsibilities" which, from a political conservative's POV, go far beyond the limits imposed on government by the Constitution.
I don't believe this can be changed, and perhaps it should not be changed. Some of the issues are complex and involve technologies and/or factors the Founders could not have anticipated. If this is indeed the case, it seems to me that carved-in-stone across-the-board conservatism might tend to be too hidebound to cope with new developments.
I am not able to take this line of thinking further at the moment, if at all, by meself.
Any thoughts?
RKBA Democrat,
I'm taking the liberty of transcribing your response to my little tract here on its stand-alone thread, with my responses to it appended.
Lavrenti,
Ditto
[RKBA Democrat wrote]
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.
[RKBA Democrat wrote]
We have no choice but to fight. 40% plus of the population identifies with the opposition as it is currently comprised. Kissing off that large of a portion of the populace is simply not feasible.
In my view, last Tuesday was a victory in the sense of the Battle of the Bulge. An important victory, yes. But not a final one.
Ultimately, I think conservatives have two basic choices; they can work to assist in changing the Democratic party to rework it into a loyal opposition, or they can stand around and congratulate themselves while the Democratic party retools itself into a sort of Fedayeen Michael Moore.
I'm optimistic, and time will tell whether that optimisim is misplaced.
[King Prout wrote]
I saw your reply to the stand-alone thread, and I thank you for it.
On another thread, a FReeper asked "what is it, really, that they are afraid of?"
I replied:
Many Donk thinkers have been stating that this rush to the left is killing the party since the late 1980s.
There was never a national consensus on any pressing social issue since Civil Rights. The only changes imposed on American society since Roe v. Wade has been from above, either by courts, or the media elite. However, the only cultural transformations of any note were in the intellectual ghettoes of college towns and the large cities. Middle America remains in the middle, however increasingly radicallized and now an active participant in the national debate.
I am 34.
For some years prior to my birth, and up until 24 years after it, the DNC controlled the federal legislature, most state legislatures, and the entire judicial system.
During this period, the Left has stood for one thing above all else: Using the governemnt as a hammer to enact social engineering.
The rhetoric from the Left was all shiny-happy-kumbaya: If we tweak society this way or that, everyone will be happy and life will be great for everyone.
the results the common man has observe over this time period are quite different from the promise.
What we have seen is a decline in the health and tone of society, on the level of daily interactions.
Most of what the Left has done has resulted in an increase in government authority and invasiveness with no concommitant responsibility or accountability. It has resulted in making it ever more difficult to discipline our children, to hire the workers we choose, to fire workers who are inadequate, to enforce "the rules" of public conduct by which local civil societies prosper, to say what we think, to believe as we choose, to associate with whom we wish and shun those we wish to shun.
It is impossible to fail to observe that during this same interval: education scores declined, crime increased, civility in public went out the window, work-ethics dried up, poverty did NOT disappear, the nuclear family was undermined, etc...
The whole "values vote" deal was in no way limited to or even centered on gay "marriage" - that issue was, essentially, just the last straw.
The Left has a bad reputation which they have VERY MUCH EARNED.
Their reformation will depend very much on dropping the "progressive" agenda which has resulted in so much damage to what Middle America considers (rightly, I might add) hale and proper.
"Their reformation will depend very much on dropping the "progressive" agenda which has resulted in so much damage to what Middle America considers (rightly, I might add) hale and proper."
Eye, there is the rub! The DNC is determined to push the pro homosexual pro abortion agenda. There also has been a decided move to the left over the past 20 years. I don't see any substantive change coming anytime soon.
I was thinking in much broader terms, but the homosexual agenda and RvW are part of it.
Now, bear something in mind: My take on the gay "marriage" issue and the abortion issue are not in lockstep with those of the folks here on FR who track them most ardently.
On gay "marriage":
Get the government ENTIRELY out of the marriage business. Establish legal equity (inheritance, next-of-kin rights, taxation, perhaps insurance... NOT adoption!) by making all of the legal pair-bonding contracts "Unions". Let the culture-war aspect of the issue be handled by the people. It is NOT the government's job to take a side in the culture war. I believe the matter will settle once the majority no longer need be concerned that a very small minority-within-a-minority will use the government to force them to pretend to love them.
On Abortion:
I very, VERY tepidly support the continued availability of legal abortion.
OTOH, Roe vs. Wade is clearly unconstitutional, for several reasons, and should be struck down.
The matter should then return to the several State legislatures, perhaps even to local legislatures.
If you want my reasoning for this, i'll explain in as much detail as I can... I've lost track of where I posted my thoughts on this issue, but I can reconstitute them, thought they might lack the specific citations I used before.
see above.
the DNC might be able to deal with these compromises.
"I was thinking in much broader terms, but the homosexual agenda and RvW are part of it."
I'm sure you were speaking in much broader terms. I was merely citing a couple of examples. All of us at FR have our own beliefs and agendas. That is what makes the discussions here so interesting.
My beliefs are as follows:
I want the feds out of most everything they have involved
themselves with; out of schooling, out of all social engineering, out of subsidies for business or agriculture.
These things will never happen, but I believe the feds job is to protect America....not to protect us from ourselves.
I think the model for the Democratic party should be a return to it's Jeffersonian roots.
Doing so would fix a lot of problems; two obvious ones come to mind. First, it gives it an alternative philosophical basis to the party without inventing one, and second, it would give the libertarians something useful to do.
Conservatives are critical to get it moving. I don't know that they will participate. I hope they will realize that this is their future as well. There just seems to be this incredible urge within conservative circles to declare victory prematurely. Sad to say, few conservatives still have a seat at the Democratic party table in order to influence the outcome. I hope that changes.
The DNC itself will not compromise or change unless it sees a way of retaining power by doing so. The tendency is to do the same old thing a little harder and cake the makeup on a little thicker (to paraphrase Zell).
I am an optimist, but I have to acknowledge that it's awful difficult to convince conservatives of a fundamental truism: sometimes there comes a point when if you want it done right, you'll have to do it yourself.
I think you and I are singing off the same set of music, just different pages.
agreed, across the board.
Well, I do what I can, for the moment.
the endless argument in the 3D CGI communities, for one.
I have had some success in causing centrist Democrats to stop and think and get out of the Borg-like Collective. I have had some success in encouraging the silent conservatives there to stand up. I have had ENORMOUS success in goading the Soros-meatpuppets into gibbering frenzy - which really hamstrings their credibility and does far more than any rational argument I can muster to cause folks to look at what they DO (rather than pretend to believe or stand for) and say: No thanks.
In such forums I am the sand in the vaseline, the monkey in the wrench, the pain in the ass.
I have had some worthwhile impact.
As to "working within the Party" - hrmn... right now, at least, I am not able to force myself to do it. The problem is, beyond any other thing, the shout-down. Honestly, I'd end up literally strangling anyone who "Carvilled" me.
Thr Democratic party you see on the various talking head programs is very different from the one that meets at your local library. Particularly in the south. Shouting down is not tolerated and southern manners apply.
I understand your reticence. It is the path less traveled. I resisted what I knew to be the right thing to do until after 9/11. Then the patriotism kicked in.
Thr Democratic party you see on the various talking head programs is very different from the one that meets at your local library. Particularly in the south. Shouting down is not tolerated and southern manners apply.
I understand your reticence. It is the path less traveled. I resisted what I knew to be the right thing to do until after 9/11. Then the patriotism kicked in.
well, here in Quitman it's pretty much the same way.
hell, half my votes were for Democrats.
but that's local.
how does one make that matter on the national scene?
All politics ARE local. Tip O'Neil was right on that if nothing else.
Truth be told, state and local politics interest me more than national, because that's where the decisions that actually impact my life are made. Frankly, milk policy in Wisconsin has little impact on me personally. But whether the Commonwealth bans guns...that impacts me very personally.
Anyway, I'll attempt to answer your question as directly as I can. And I'll keep it to one general theme. I seem to recall you're from GA. Do you remember Billy and Cynthia McKinney? More importantly, do you remember how they were both thrown out of office (although I hear Cynthia might have come back)? It wasn't Republicans who delivered those coup de graces, it was Democrats.
Most seats in the House of Representatives and legislatures are not even challenged by the other party. That's because state legislatures have gerrymandered seats to the extent that the opposing party has zero chance of winning the seat. That's why Cynthia and Billy got and kept their seats for as long as they did.
Most incumbent officeholders who lose their seats these days lose them due to a primary challenge, not in the general election. Look at this most recent election. The only incumbent U.S. Senator that I'm aware of who actually lost his job was Tom Daschle. And how much did that cost Republicans? It's actually a pretty rare thing to happen for a Senator, and almost unheard of for a member of the House. You've got to pull a Gary Condit just about to lose your job (another example of a primary challenger winning).
But let's expand on that a bit. Let's imagine that you really disliked someone like, oh, Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi is in a safe Democratic district. She will not lose her job to a Republican. She could safely ignore a Republican challenger. The same would not be true for a Democrat.
So that's one way an...inspired...Democrat can make an impact. There are many, many, many more.
Jihad Cyndi is indeed back.
I think I see what you are saying.
Deliberate infiltration.
It does bear considering.
(wink wink, nudge nudge)
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006240
a lengthy and excellent dissection of the problem
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