Posted on 11/09/2004 4:54:19 AM PST by kattracks
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 only 10 years ago, I would like to answer Gov. Napolitano's question as honestly as she posed it.
Gov. Napolitano, your party does indeed have very 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, 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 president of the United States. 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 like 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. Even The New York Times, in a post-election analysis, wrote of "the possibility that activist entertainers' fervent endorsements might have cost Mr. Kerry the election."
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 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. The Democratic candidate and his fellow Democrats repeatedly voted against a ban on this practice.
Gov. 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, as this observer sees it, is how has this party retained so many people who have traditional American values?
Great!
Calm, sane and reasoned. Will the Democrats read and understand this?
Many thanks to Mr. Prager for this insightful piece.
Amen!!!!!!
The Guv has been in the sun too long. She doesn't know what her party looks like to the majority of America!
They still don't get it. The simple answer is Michael Moore, and hollyweird. End of sentence.
Brilliant. That about sums it up doesn't it.
Great Post - Thanks
At first I thought the democrats had gone insane. As I read and listen to them now, they are proving it.
Ummmmmmmmm...
1. Abortion of the innocent
2. Homosexuality
3. Violation of the commandment: "Thou Shall NOT covet thy neighbors goods."
I could add about 30 more.
'Values' is what sociologists call another society's understanding (or misunderstanding) of virtue. 'Values' can be changed by will or whim: Nietzche wrote of the 'transvaluation of values' and wanted to flip Christian values upside down, to consider charity and self-sacrifice as evil. Multiculturalism and the sort of feminism that blathers about 'women's ways of knowing' don't deny stereotypes, they accept and 'transvalue' them.
We did well this election. But to move decisively toward victory in the culture war, we need to retake the bridge we gave up when we started using 'values' and start forthrightly talking about virtues: the virtue of charity, the virtue of chastity, of humility, of thrift, of self-control, of self-reliance, of temperance, of moderation; of prudence. . .
And start speaking of them in terms which leave no room for confusion with the parodies of the virtue created by extremists on either side (humility is realism about oneself, not self-denigration; charity is an imitation of our Heavenly Father 'who makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust' not a grudging obligation which can be met through taxation and government spending; temperance is not teetotaling but due moderation in use of drink; chastity is celibacy OR confinement of erotic expression to one's spouse; thrift is not miserliness, . . .
As long as we talk about 'values' rather than 'virtues' we're playing backed up against our own goal line.
this is a good one! i think what you mean is that democrats want to tax, tax, tax! and the tax dollars are used to put in place social programs that are a feeble attempt to produce "heaven on earth", a completely impossible concept.
america's values are helping one another, not paying big gov't to provide hand outs through buerocracy. there is joy in helping one another out; there is no joy in a bloated government.
Scratch a Liberal, he'll bleed envy, not blood.
"Americans want a party committed to moral virtues not 'values'."
I agree and came to the same conclusion recently when debating the notion with a unconvinced lefty. Bill Bennett's "Book of Virtues" should be required reading for those of us who want to advance this debate.
To Republicans, values are something we live with every day. They influence our decisions at work, at home, or wherever we may be.
To Democrats, values are like a valuable, antique cars - they don't even see the light of day unless they think it will get them somewhere!
You are compassionate to the poor? How so? With whose money? You want free health care for all? With whose money? You want gays to have the right to marry? How is that compassionate to the other 70% of the population whose religious values are compromised if they are they forced to recognize those marriages by the legal structures that you know full well will result?
What "values" is the governor talking about?
WOW! Dead on.
The Democrats know this but their leaders,the Liberal faction, think they can whip the rest of America into marching in lockstep like they have the rest of their party.
You can bet they will not give up,they will just try and put on another face like it is Halloween and continue to divide America and mold us like they have the moderates and conservatives of their own party.
They are much closer to success than most realize the last two elections should have been a wake up call to America. The Democrats or I should say the Liberals have taken over 90% of our educational facilities,the media,churches,the ABA and they have enough on the bench to legislate until they gain control of the rest of government and this to they will be able to do if we are not careful and when they reach this goal America wakes up with a Communist country and dictator.
Enjoy yourself it is later than you think if we accept this election as a total victory. To me it is just another call to awaken!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.