Posted on 09/21/2004 7:58:15 AM PDT by Valin
"9/11 Democrats"
Good post and useful info - I printed it for a few friends living in divided households (hand-wringing lefty wives).
Good article. Have it bookmarked for reference.
Great article, thanks :-)
I'll be forwarding this one...
Sounds like Dad didn't handle money very well.
Between heiresses, Kerry had to live on his own earnings, and the results were not pretty.
....and passed this propensity on to his son.
It has been a bad week for the Dems and it keeps getting worse. The author effectively skewers Kerry and the Democratic party like a shishkabob (minus the meat and potatoes).
Man oh man... Watching this campaign is like watching Mike Tyson punch a bobblehead doll.
APf
It is "becoming harder by the day to take the Democrats seriously as the party of the common man," writes columnist Daniel Henninger. "The party's primary sources of support have become trial lawyers and Wall Street financiers. It is becoming a party run by a new class of elites who make fast money--$25 million for 30 days work on a movie, millions (even billions) winning lawsuits against doctors...millions to do arithmetic for a business merger."
I once heard it put "The lib's manipulate the poor and their vote like a cat tending a nest of mice."
This is a duplicate. Search is our friend.
However, I think that the change is even more basic. If I were to generalize, I see a huge philosophical devide. I see Republicans as having a faith that they can make a better life for themselves, if Government does not get in the way and yet they want Government to provide for certain basic securities like protection from foreign terrorism, keeping career criminals locked up, and some infrastructure things.
I see Democrats having a believe that the vast majority of Americans live life on the edge of disaster (job loss, illness, violent crime, big corporations that will outsource jobs-cheat people out of retirement-sell defective goods that kill or maim-steal folks money & run-overcharge for basic necessities-gouge people when they are down, being discriminated against by society.) This group looks to an all powerfull government to protect them and to "punish the other guy." This is why class warefare, minority, sexual orientation & ethnic rights, along with the trial lawyers lobby are so much a part of the Democratic party.
I see the 9/11 Democrats as being smart enough to realize that protecting against corporations is far less important that protecting against terrorists. They have seen the death and destruction that terrorists can do both in terms of people killed and injured and in terms of economic crisis. The 9/11 terrorists destroyed more travel industry jobs than any corporate outsourcing. The 9/11 terrorists killed more people than any "gun control" bill would have off set. The 9/11 terrorists created more air pollution than any environmental law that could have passed and not killed jobs.
The "party of the little guy" versus the "party of the fat cat" was always a false caricature.
Part of the confusion has always been built into the distortion in the word "liberal"; as almost everyone here understands modern "liberals" are not liberal. They are statists. As a party they are divided between people who expect government to manage their lives and people who expect to be the managers. The writer is surprised to find elitists drifting to the elitist party, but he shouldn't be, there couldn't be anything more natural.
American "conservatism" is another amalgam, but the heart of it is driven by the founding principles which were classicly liberal. Even Edmund Burke, the father of conservatism, was in the end a Whig, or classic liberal. The party of limited government and individual liberty is going to attract "yeomen", people who expect to do for themselves and expect from government only to be safe in their homes.
If you believe most people can't make it on their own, you will gravitate toward the Democratic Party. You will be at home there whether you see yourself as one of the elite who must care for the others, or one of the masses who demands to be cared for by his masters. If you are a doer and you respect the doers of this world, whether you are wealthy or haven't a dollar in your pocket, you will gravitate to the other party.
"He presents many proofs for the conclusion--long promoted in these pages--that ordinary citizens possess forms of knowledge, intuition, and moral sense that make them better arbiters of critical national debates than any educated elite"
Yes, like FReepers working from home who combined their vast resources to out the deceptive elitists at CBS.
Buckhead and the Bloggers vs the MSM... guess who won that one.
It's a great article and expresses what I have long believed but can not begin to articulate as well.
BTTT
BTTT
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