PrintJune 21, 2008
Why Do We Call Them 'Democrats'?
We all knew it even though Democrat spokespersons denied it. Worried that the negative connotations would affect their electability and their eyes glued to the capricious winds of public opinion, they invented new words for the old ideology such as progressivism and communitarianism. Apparently, the camouflage is no longer needed. The masks are off. They now openly call for the nationalization of private business, the establishment of universal entitlements and increased taxation to pay for them. Why worry about socialist labels? The electorate is complacent, prosperity has numbed our senses and the left has worked diligently for many years to sap our national pride and deface our self-image.
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." - Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948
Eight years into the twenty-first century, Mr. Thomas' prediction is coming perilously close to fruition; the presidential elections of 2008 may well validate his faith in "liberalism" and its Trojan horse delivery of Socialism. After decades of slow yet persistent desensitization to Socialism in our schools, in our media and in government policy, Americans are blind to its ramifications for our prosperity, our individual freedoms and our national identity. Political candidates and legislators espouse openly socialist policies without eliciting the slightest outrage or significant comment, so successfully have the philosophies of Marx and Lenin permeated the national psyche.
House Democrats, loudly shifting blame from the consequences of their energy policies, threaten nationalization of American oil companies. Mimicking Marxist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, their answer to the energy crisis is eliminating free markets.
"Should the people of the United States own refineries? Maybe so. Frankly, I think that's a good idea. Then we could control the amount of refined product much more capably that gets out on the market..." Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) 18 June Press Conference with Democratic leadership.
Representative Hinchey is on the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee and the Natural Resources Committee, committees with enormous influence on energy matters. He went on as he stood next to House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL):
"So if there's any seriousness about what some of our Republican colleagues are saying here in the House and elsewhere about improving the number of refineries, then maybe they'd be willing to have these refineries owned publicly, owned by the people of the United States, so that the people of the United States can determine how much of the product is refined and put out on the market.
"To me, that sounds like a very good idea."
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) once considered one of congress's fringe leftists apparently let the Democrat party policy slip during show hearings with oil company executives earlier in the month:
"This liberal will be all about socializing, uh, uh . . . would be about . . . basically taking over and the government running all of your companies."
Anticipating the consequences of what they do for political expediency is not a skill the Democrats nurture. Their refusal to support the development of domestic oil reserves, for decades has left us beggars on the world market, susceptible to the whims of theocratic tyrants and Marxist thugs. The record is clear, Republicans voted to develop domestic resources, the Democrats voted against development, by wide margins. Democrat party leaders are now feverishly shifting blame, developing public distracters, claiming their remarks are taken out of context and, as always, counting on the fickle memory of the electorate to kill the issue.
Our Democrat-Socialists invariably support polices that end badly. Bio fuels have removed important food surpluses from markets, raising food prices worldwide. The energy and water required to produce it is far greater to an equal measure of gasoline. This is an example of the solution being worse than the problem. Their anti-Iraq war hysterics have failed; Iraqi democracy moves forward against all odds, a remarkable achievement. The accusations of administration malfeasance, in the war on terror, in diplomacy, in a dozen other areas are proving unsupportable.
Even global warming has turned up a hoax, at best a wild exaggeration more to do with ideology and money than science. Temperatures are dropping, CO2 does not seem to affect global weather and the sun is gone into a natural dormant phase, which means decades of cooler temperatures. Another inconvenient "truth" falls away. Yet new ones are always being born, America's Socialists are ever mutable, shifting and accommodating in the winds of political change. They are clever when inventing new causes and convincing the American people that their record is not their fault.
They never let themselves get pinned down; they never sit idle for the blame to settle.
Our Founding Fathers created a system that understood what best motivates its citizens: a desire to better their lives and the lives of their families. They developed a system that accepts the realties of the human condition, and allows for competing ambitions with checks and balances that are remarkably resilient. It is a system that cultivates enterprise and prosperity, and has been supremely successful. The Socialists want to change it.
Socialism bleeds the vitality from a nation; it dilutes the national will, and lulls the citizenry into a stupor that makes it ill suited to survival. Existential threats are ignored as social programs and entitlements consume ever larger and larger portions of the national budget. Communism, Socialisms most virulent strain, has been so spectacular a failure it is hard to fathom how anyone could continue to be seduced by its false promises. Yet, we see Marxist autocrats such a Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega idolized with the same adolescent naiveté that made Pol Pot and Fidel Castro palatable to liberal elites in the West. As is always the case, when their inevitable depredations shock and embarrass their western apologists, they quickly disappear from our newspapers and television sets, filtered out by the ideology that erases unpleasant truths by pretending they are not there.
Our willingness to forgo easy comfort and short-term gain for a greater and more lasting prosperity has made us what we are. Most Americans still expect to work for what they have. We take pride in our labors. We expect our fellow citizens to do the same. We are generous with our charity precisely because it is voluntary. We bridle under oppressive government regulation. We know that utopias are a fairytale, and thankfully, for now, a significant number of us can still spot a charlatan.
The Socialist Party of America has arrived, wearing Democrat clothing. Socialist control of the presidency and congress would knock America to its knees as nothing has before. What was inconceivable five years ago becomes a frightening possibility with Obama, Pelosi, Boxer and Reid. The Democrats socialist vision will be a disaster.
If you think gas is expensive now, wait until the socialists in congress run the oil business.
"The past shows unvaryingly that when a people's freedom disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious, it will not long be found at all." - Richard Weaver, 1962
