Peggy Noonan write
an article dissecting the problems with the Democratic party. I read it and found it more of the same Republican baiting and posturing.
It's very hard to someone seriously who writes, "Republicans by and large don't suffer from blind loyalty" and "The mistake the Democrats made was to allow their antiwar movement to become infused with bitterness and hostility, with a spirit of destructiveness."
Yet, her point is valid to a degree "that The Republican Party still manages to cohere around principles that are essentially clear and essentially conservative."
It is true that you know what Republicans say that they want as their idea of a better America. But, at the same, it's rubbish to say that goals of equality and fairness are no longer relevant. Have things improved in 40 years? Yes. Now, why is that? The Republicans are fond of saying that they want one thing, but what they deliver is quite another.
For example, look at Noonan's own article. The Republican association with the extremists of the NRA is no different than the Democrats and the pro-choice groups. They use similar arguments: Any law that attempts to restrict guns/abortion will be a first step towards a total ban. They resist any type of reasonable ban. Heck, any ban. Noonan is perpetuating a myth, and I think I have had enough of scenes out of 1984.
Her rant about liberal snobbery has some element of truth, I know, but she's on a political agenda here: We have what you don't.
Look, only some 2,000 votes separated Democrats from Republicans in the 2002 elections. This country is split. Let's not accept that Republicans are the model to emulate. Obviously, they're not so persuasive as they try to persuade. (Her hypothetical situation about saving kids at McDonald's is drivel.)
Republicans love America; Democrats snub it. Well, I've listened to Rush, to DeLay, to the talking heads of the Republicans. I hear them belittle Americans--"Lawsuits, that's what America is all about these days." Americans are stupid. American are poorly educated. And when they attacked and attacked and attacked Clinton, they belittled the majority of Americans who approved of Clinton's handling of the country in polls.
Who's the snob? My experience is exactly the opposite of Noonan's. It is the Republicans that I find the snobs: Screw public education. Screw the lower and middle class.
I find it so disingenuous for a republican to say that they stand for something but that democrats are opposed to anything republican, thus standing for nothing.
Look, Republicans stand even more contra to the New Deal, to achievements in the 60s, than the Democrats stand against Republicans. If one party is more defined by what it is not, that party is the Republicans.
I agree with Noonan only so far as to say that the Democrats need to better say what they stand for. To suggest that they stand for nothing, though, is political posturing and deception. I have grown tired of the condescension from conservatives to make me feel bad about myself as a liberal.
"Respect normal Americans again," she says. My dear Peggy, I have listened to Dick Armey, Pete Sessions, Tom DeLay, and my other Texas government officials show absolutely no respect for me, and I'm quite normal. Don't patronize me by telling me that my beliefs are an ideology forced on life, not derived from life. Your party, Peggy, has made a monster of normal Americans, Americans who have asked for equal pay, fair treatment, and the right to hold people accountable for injuries and damage. Does a party that loves Americans and respects normal people attack a decorated veteran like Max Cleland as an unpatriotic coward?
Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
I believe that life is sacred, that we have a responsibility to protect those who are not able and to protect our country. I believe that people should be given equal opportunities to exceed. I believe that people are indeed more important than profit.