PrintSeptember 9, 2009
Democrats and the one-party mentality
For some time now, the leaders of this Congress, safely ensconced in heavily gerrymandered urban districts, have plodded ahead with a widely unpopular left wing agenda. Like so many Nurse Ratcheds, they relish in their power, presume they know what is best and brook no dissent. The current discontent between the political class and the rest of the nation has been brewing for several years as spending has increasingly gotten out of control. I suspect it may be coming to a head with the Health Care Bill.
According to a new Rasmussen survey
Seventy-eight percent (78%) of U.S. voters say every American should be allowed to purchase the same health insurance plan that members of Congress use.........only seven percent (7%) of voters disagree and 15% are not sure.
This is so lopsided, it makes you wonder who those 7% are.
It also appears that Congress is still not listening. According to this report, Congress believes they deserve better health care than others Americans. Rep. Dean Heller, R-NV already offered an amendment to the House Ways and Means Committee that would have required members of Congress to he covered by the Public Option if it is in the final bill.
Predictably, however, the Heller amendment was defeated, with all 21 committee Democrats voting against it. That vote is indicative of the reality that any bill requiring Congress to be covered by the same health care as the public has the proverbial snow ball in Hades' chances of being enacted.
In the analysis accompanying his poll, Scott Rasmussen observes
"In the Federalist Papers, written to promote passage of the U.S. Constitution, it was noted that the only way to effectively control a legislator was to insure that they come home and live under the rules they write for the rest of us. In the 21st century, that doesn't happen anymore. So voters seem to be applying the same logic in reverse by saying that they would like a chance to play by the same rules that Congress has written for themselves."
In recent years the American political class has respond to dissent in three ways. They ignore it. They brand it as racist, bigoted and homophobic. And they issue veiled threats to turn their urban thugs loose. As this video shows, the people are fed up with being ignored. The election of Obama defanged the wholesale charges of racism. And increasingly people are willing to call the far left's bluff on violence. In the age of the ubiquitous video camera, thuggish behavior is more likely to backfire on those who employ it while an explosion in gun purchases in the last three years has people feeling that they are not entirely dependent upon the authorities for personal protection.
Those in the White House and on Capitol Hill have little practical experience with political opposition. They mostly come from urban areas. The middle class that might be expected to oppose them in local elections departed for the suburbs and exurbs decades ago. Congress and the White House need to remember that while our major cities are mostly left wing fiefdoms rife with corruption and nanny state rules and regulations, as a nation this is still a government of laws, not authoritarian busybodies. It depends on the consent of the governed, which is grounded in trust. The Democrats broke those bonds in 2006 and again in 2008 by promising to control spending and govern as moderates. Record deficits and racist communists like Van Jones broke those bonds of trust.
I have noted from the beginning that the slogans and the imagery of the Tea Party movement -- chants of We the People and the many Gadsden flags, should not be taken lightly. These are the people who buy biographies of the founding fathers to be inspired, not to nitpick them for not having 21st Century politically correct values. Like Washington, Adams and Franklin, the people at the Town Halls and the Tea Party Demonstrations may be unlikely revolutionaries, but revolt they will when consistently disrespected by those who presume to rule over them.
To me they embody a quintessential American trait, a deep respect for the rule of law married to an almost contemptuous disregard for those actually working in government. The Won and Queen Pelosi are learning the hard way that the masses they treat as their subjects are patriots who do not call themselves subject to much at all.
