What I Don't Like About Democrats

As I wrote yesterday, one of the most admirable things about the Democratic Party is its often genuine concern for the little guy. However, like all good things, that can have a dark side. Concern for those perceived as helpless can turn into the desire to control their lives for them.
Three bad things can come out of this impulse. One) The “liberal” wing of the Democratic Party seems full of well intentioned folk who apparently feel they are uniquely qualified to act in loco parentis for the rest of us. (It’s not Big Brother, it’s Big Mommy and Daddy.)
They are going to make us joy in our diversity whether we wish to or not. (This is an interesting stance for a party much of whose membership rose out of homogenous ethnic ghettos.) We are going to be taught about the homosexual life style, whether we wish to be or not. In some cases, this includes instilling bias against the military, business and religion.
They protect themselves against views to the contrary with the fervor of the 16th Century Catholic Church’s Holy Office. Their view becomes a religion in its own right. They often march in a lock step that would be the envy of any totalitarian society in history.
This bigotry—and that is what their intolerance for any other view than their own actually is—rises out of their belief that they alone know what is best for mankind. The Ayatollahs of Iran, the Bolsheviks of Russia and the Fascists of Italy held and hold the same world view.
Two) They are still following the preachments of the brilliant 19th Century Democratic Party spokesman for the slave states, John C. Calhoun. He preached against the “Tyranny of the Majority”. He was incensed that a majority of anti-slavery northerners could dare to impose its will on a minority like the southern slave states.
His point of view—that the majority, that any majority is inherently untrustworthy and evil—strikes at the basis of democracy. But, in that very name of democracy, our more liberal friends in the Democratic Party have increasingly been successful in making the majority of Americans feel ashamed of themselves. It becomes a wicked thing to outnumber someone else. You should feel wracked with guilt if you merely are who you are—if you are a member of a majority.
This is a point of view of people whose party gained its power in ghettos full of ethnics who faced discrimination from WASPs and Protestants. I understand that. My own ethnic group couldn't get admitted to the better clubs in Grand Rapids when I was a boy.
We huddled in Dutch ethnic ghettos--with our own churches, businesses and even our own ball fields. Now Dutchmen could buy and sell Grand Rapids and they face discrimination nowhere. It's a rite of passage all Americans have gone through. Now, ho ho, we are part of that "majority". And they want us to be ashamed.
If you are white (we Dutch are), think of all the underprivileged non-whites and be ashamed—simply because by an accident of birth you happen to be in the majority. Ditto if you tend to espouse any form of Christianity that is more rigorous than an occasional attendance at Christmas and Easter.
The same thing goes for sexual preference or public speech. If you disagree with the position of the moment—or if you recommend caution or attention to another point of view—you are guilty of a “hate crime”. Heaven forbid you should dislike a member of an ethnic group.
I have watched elementary teachers exhaust themselves trying to explain to little Susie why she MUST like little Henry. When subbing at that level, I have more than once had a shocked child come up to me and gasp that Janie said she doesn’t like me. Obviously I was expected to deal firmly with Janie.
Instead I told the tearful complainant that it is Janie’s absolute democratic right to dislike anyone, including you. She may not hurt you or injure your interests in any way—but she doesn’t have to like you. The complaining child went back to his or her seat and, in a few moments, they were chattering away with “Janie” like old friends.
You cannot make me like you. I cannot make you like or approve of me. I may not hurt you, but I am entirely permitted to dislike and ignore you. This is a bedrock democratic principle that has lost all currency in the Democratic Party. I still try to live by the old maxim: I don’t have to like you, but all of my rights stop at the tip of your nose.
Three) This concern for minorities can, unrestrained, turn into an absurd and ugly form of pandering. It not only makes smug, bigoted hypocrites out of those who do the pandering, it can inspire great resentment in those who are pandered to.
There was no more effective way of calling a black man the “N word” than by treating him with a form of disdainful condescension in the guise of self-serving pity for his plight and obviously surface deep acceptance of his person—and that, only in public settings.
One reason the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s collapsed—even before King’s death—was that resentful blacks told unctuous (mostly Democratic supporters) to stop fussing about Alabama and go home and integrate their Chicago and Boston suburbs.
I worked with a man with whom I developed a close and honest relationship while in Washington. One weekend I was throwing a party for friends of mine from New York and Washington whom I thought he might get a kick out of meeting. I invited him.
He paused for a long moment. He said, “I don’t mean to hurt you—we’ve been honest enough as friends for a long time. But I’m not coming. As a Presidential aide, there are some things I can’t get out of. I’ve been the nigger at too many parties.”
He told me of White House receptions where, amidst the hors d’oeuvres, there was a platter of fried chicken. (This was the Johnson administration—of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.) It was his job, when a new white official came on board the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, to take him into the neighborhood where he was raised and show them the ghetto.
It never crossed anyone’s mind to ask how he felt about doing that. He did it—afterward, I and a few of his friends sat for hours listening to him unwind. Rarely have I seen deeper into a man’s soul than I have on those nights. I couldn’t do that to someone, having known him. Not even to win an election.
And it does win elections for the Democrats. Find a precinct or district where some minority—be it sexual, religious or ethnic—feels put upon. Publicly espouse their cause. Come and stand with the leaders—and you have the votes of their followers.
Some of this is decently motivated; some of it is pure hypocritical pandering by people who may be no more tolerant than the most bitterly right wing radical. But it works. It wins elections.
No. Let me think for myself. Don’t mother me. Let me choose those whom I like to be around. And let me take up only those causes I seriously believe in.
I cannot join in some of the games and gambits I see going down in the Democratic Party. No thank you. Much as I respect and like many members and positions of the Party.
Tomorrow—why I still hang with the Republicans.