The Progressives?
Posted on 08/09/2006 10:40:08 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
The Democrat Party died yesterday in Hartford, Connecticut. Present when this venerable institution breathed its last were a minority of the Democrats in the Nutmeg State. The Party was the child of the Republican-Democrat Party, and the Anti-Federalist Party. It leaves no known descendants. However, political parties sometimes spawn children many years after their deaths.
Is that verdict too harsh? The leaders of the Democrat Party in Washington, New York, and elsewhere, are not admitting even to a serious illness. It’s difficult to conduct a proper Irish wake when on-lookers insist on prodding the deceased to sing and dance.
These major political parties have held great power – usually including the Presidency and control of one or both Houses of Congress – only to disappear from the political stage, remembered in history books that no one reads any more: The Federalists, the Anti-Federalists, the Republican-Democrats....
Let’s review. The Democrats hold Jefferson-Jackson Dinners annually, claiming Jefferson as their progenitor. Crack open a history book. Read Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address. He founded the Republican-Democrat Party, which existed only during his two terms as President. Not only was he not a Democrat, he would have run screaming into the night rather than accept the levels of national power and taxation that modern Democrat espouse.
The Whigs, the Union Democrats, and the Liberal Republican Parties are also in the political graveyard, along with lesser-known cousins like the Anti-Masonic Party (held the first national political convention), the Know-Nothings, and the Progressives (the actual party which ran Teddy Roosevelt in 1912).
Since most reporters are grossly ignorant of American political history, they are unaware that political parties have often died, and others were born in their place. Not knowing that, they’re also unaware of the common cause of such political death. It happens when any party gets permanently crosswise from the American people on a critical issue. The Democrat Party has just crossed that divide.
Mind you, I am not making a brief for Joe Lieberman, personally. I liked and respected him when we were classmates at Yale, and when we worked together on The Yale Daily News. I supported him financially when he ran defeated Lowell Weicker for Senate. I lost all respect for Joe when he chose his party over his country, backing away from the Clinton Impeachment. (Because I thought Joe thoroughly honest, I’d written six months prior that I expected him to be the “honest Senator” as Goldwater was concerning President Nixon a quarter century before.)
But, when Joe came to that unique point where he alone could influence American history, for better or worse, Joe chose worse. No, I am not saying that the Democrat Party is dead because it failed to renominate Joe Lieberman for Senate from Connecticut. I’m saying the Party is dead because of who it did nominate, and how, for that slot.
Ned Lamont was the choice of the Connecticut Democrats. He’s a wealthy man who bought his nomination. This is a sad but spreading phenomenon in both parties. One reason I tend to distrust filthy-rich people who buy their way into office – regardless of their politics or party – is that they are disconnected from real life.
For instance, Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey simply forgave a half-million dollar mortgage on a house he bought for a lady friend. Since time immemorial, men have given gifts to women And it is true that Governor Corzine’s one-time bed mate had the additional advantage of being head of a large public service union. Still, anyone who can drop half a million dollars without blinking, for sex, politics, or both, is not living in the same world as I, or almost anyone I know.
Such people simply are not touched by worry about paying taxes, putting up with government regulation, or facing the myriad of real issues of real people. That brings us back to Ned Lamont. A prime mover in putting him into office was MoveOn.org. Rather than describe that outfit, I encourage every reader to go to their website. Read a sample of their policies; decide for yourself whether they are barking mad moonbats. While you’re at it, read up on George Soros, the eminence grise behind MoveOn, and various other financial puppet masters.
On foreign policy, Lamont follows former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who in turn is Neville Chamberlain in drag. We are in a war. The war will to continue – and perhaps get worse – until America takes the lead worldwide, and does what is necessary to win that war. We can only hope the price for Lamont’s politics will be lower than the 50 million who died for Neville Chamberlain’s politics.
Does this assessment change, if Joe Lieberman gets elected as an “independent” come November? Not in the least. The mere nomination of Lamont shows the cut-and-run Murtha disease has now infected more than half of the Democrat Party. The only remaining questions are, how much time will it take, and how many tens of thousands, or millions of Americans, most of them civilians, will have to die before the Democrat Party as it now exists is actually buried in the history books. Only then can a more honest and competent party take its place – as has happened so often before in American history.
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." —Marcus Aurelius
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* Note to editors who might question the 1828 date. In 1824, four candidates ran as “Democrats” including Jackson who placed first without a majority, and John Quincy Adams, who placed second but won in the House of Representatives. There were two other candidates, both “Democrats.” In short, the Democrat Party did not make a nomination in 1824. In 1828, Jackson did become the (first) presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
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About the Author: John Armor is a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, who may again be a candidate for Congress in the 11th District of North Carolina.
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Yes, I agree absolutely. Individual freedom is the essence of our whole tradition, it's what we cherish most, or used to, I should say. No one takes it very seriously anymore, it seems.
Between CFR, Kelo, and an activist interpretation of the commerce clause, we seem to have lost more rights under Republican stewardship than Clinton ever dreamed of taking from us.
I vote for Repubs because the alternative, Dems, is unthinkable. But I ain't happy about it.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2006/by_county/CT_Page_0808.html?SITE=CTHARELN&SECTION=POLITICS
West Haven...61/39 for Lieberman
New Britain... 52/48 for Lieberman
New London...50/50 for Lamont (2 vote win)
Middletown...45/56 for Lamont (a collegetown, not blue collar)
Meriden...48/52 for Lamont
Lamont's best showing...
Cornwall
Canaan
Salisbury
Lyme
Sharon
Warren
Mansfield
Roxbury
Sherman
Essex
Lieberman's Best...
East Haven
Derby
Ansonia
Beacon Falls
West Haven
Naugatuck
Orange
Waterbury
Thomaston
Wolcott
By my calculations, the average per-household income in
Lieberman towns was $71,008
Lamont towns was $90,994
>>> Lamont was elected by the elitists, not the blue-collar
The fact that the left-side-of-the-income-curve Dems voted for Lieberman does not change the fact that in competative general elections, the white collar towns go GOP, while the schlub towns go Dem.
Also keep in mind that Liberalman got the black vote by a considerable margin.
So no, the fat lunchpail types are not "conservative" unless it means confirming their public sector and/or union jobs.
Lamont and Liberalman: not a dime's difference in anything but rhetoric.
In my view, that's changing, to some extent. For instance, after Bush was elected over Kerry, complaints were heard from the blue staters along the lines of this, "hey! we're the ones with all the money, how come those red staters are running the country now?"
There are alot of pretty elite towns that go Dem. Charlottesville, VA for one, Manhattan for another. 'Course, I don't know Connecticut too well.
The very wealthiest folk of all seem to be over on the Left.
"The very wealthiest folk of all seem to be over on the Left."
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The easiest way to keep people in their place is to have the govt. help them.
I think a country dominated by Republicans and Prohibitionists would be a nice place to live!
Leftism is powered by envy. In the case of the rich it's all about envy-deflection. "Look everybody, I'm one of the GOOD rich, so let me keep my wealth and instead tax those greedy working doctors and the greedy lawyers that sue them!"
If only we could treat envy and the related disorder narcissism en masse we could greatly reduce the amount of evil in the world.
The Republicans are the party of the normal middle class (professionals, entrepreneurs/businesspeople, etc) and the normal rich. The Dems are the party of the nutty rich, the professorial class, gubmint employees and the welfare class, to say nothing of braindead yooonyun members.
Besides, do you really want to be identified with either Metros OR beer-bellied uneducated losers?
This "low class populist" mythos has got to be killed.
Indeed. In fact, even at my advancing age....I still harbor a belief that I can join their ranks....at least to a comfortable degree....and I will continue to labor in that direction. The effort itself gives me pleasure.
I met a RAT Party recruiter yesterday and asked him about why his candidate for re-election to Congress voted against the Patriot Act. He said that the Act is trash. He then went on to ridicule Bush and the Iraq war as "based upon lies." It was the usual RAT rant, baseless and loud. I did not lose my temper, but left him with my definitive statement that all liberals are insane.
Oh, and I liked your quote from Marcus Aurelius so much I immediately used parts of it below.
And it's a good possibility that he may.
OTOH, if there is another one, and she is something on the order of Shrillery, or some barking moonbat type, also a distinct possibility, who "cuts and runs" and then we get a major attack here at home, that will surely put the final nail in the coffin of the Democratic party. Hope it doesn't take that though.
I have a place or two I'd like to use this, with your permission.
The Progressives?
Well, they've got their share of role models.
The Kennedys I can do without along with the Hollywood rich, but mostly the rich are the cream of our society.
*Snerk*
Most of those are a who's who of RINOs or ineffectual, cowering conservatives.
(...John Heinz really persuaded Teresa of conservative values, didn't he?)
Cheers!
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