The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Why the "bad month" the Republicans have had doesn't matter a whit
Michael Barone makes an excellent point in his US News "blog": yes, the Republicans have had a really rough month; on the other hand most Republicans happen to actually love America (what a novel idea!)--they actually believe in this place we live, in its form of government, and in and everything it stands for. And we are quickly getting to the point if ww have not already gotten there, where one cannot say the same for the Democrats. Arguably, a majority of Democrats do not fit the above description. Barone's lengthy piece (which deserves a thorough reading) concludes:
Samuel Huntington notes in his book Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity the emergence of "denationalized elites" in this and other countries—highly educated people who feel a loyalty more to secular liberal principles than to their own country. Such elites and their nonelite counterparts now constitute a large and, in 2004 at least, dominant segment of one of our political parties. Powerlineblog Tuesday morning contained a letter from its Iraq correspondent Major E., who reports that after he returned to his home in northern California he contacted local organizations and offered to speak to them about what he had observed in Iraq.
I contacted county leadership for both Democrats and Republicans, along with non-partisan church and civic groups, and have received numerous requests from churches, non-partisan groups, and Republican organizations – but zero from Democrats, despite following up with them several times.
I hope it is an anomaly, but I wonder if the fact that Democratic leaders in my county would rather accuse the troops at Gitmo of running a "gulag" than hear about the experiences of a service member who just returned from Iraq might be driving some folks away from their tent of "tolerance," not just here in Northern California but around the country.
After a talk to a Republican group the other night, one couple came up to me and explained that they grew up in strongly Democratic families, joking that they knew about both God and FDR, but were unsure about who came first. But today's Democratic party, they said, had strayed so far from their beliefs that they can no longer vote Democratic. . . .
That is unfortunate because our nation needs two parties that believe in America as a great country, even if each has a different strategy for making it better. Two parties are needed so that a healthy balance can become at risk in any society if there is only one perspective. Yet, until the rank-and-file Democrats start choosing leaders who represent America's values and genuinely support American troops, I fear they may continue to be a party that even die-hard Democrats from the Greatest Generation will find themselves unable to support.
As far as the situation in Iraq is concerned, suffice it to say that things are going much better over there than is being reported, and I am confident that the voter participation in the upcoming constitutional referendum and in December's elections will confirm that.
The anti-Iraqi forces seem to win the battle for daily headlines, but we win on the big events–because, as on January 30th, the victory was so big as to be undeniable. More important that scoring PR points, though, is the fact that life of the average Iraqi is improving and the legitimacy of the new government is growing.
The phrase that stuck out for me: "Our nation needs two parties that believe in America as a great country." I think Galston and Kamarck would agree. I certainly do.
Samuel Huntington notes in his book Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity the emergence of "denationalized elites" in this and other countries—highly educated people who feel a loyalty more to secular liberal principles than to their own country. Such elites and their nonelite counterparts now constitute a large and, in 2004 at least, dominant segment of one of our political parties. Powerlineblog Tuesday morning contained a letter from its Iraq correspondent Major E., who reports that after he returned to his home in northern California he contacted local organizations and offered to speak to them about what he had observed in Iraq.
I contacted county leadership for both Democrats and Republicans, along with non-partisan church and civic groups, and have received numerous requests from churches, non-partisan groups, and Republican organizations – but zero from Democrats, despite following up with them several times.
I hope it is an anomaly, but I wonder if the fact that Democratic leaders in my county would rather accuse the troops at Gitmo of running a "gulag" than hear about the experiences of a service member who just returned from Iraq might be driving some folks away from their tent of "tolerance," not just here in Northern California but around the country.
After a talk to a Republican group the other night, one couple came up to me and explained that they grew up in strongly Democratic families, joking that they knew about both God and FDR, but were unsure about who came first. But today's Democratic party, they said, had strayed so far from their beliefs that they can no longer vote Democratic. . . .
That is unfortunate because our nation needs two parties that believe in America as a great country, even if each has a different strategy for making it better. Two parties are needed so that a healthy balance can become at risk in any society if there is only one perspective. Yet, until the rank-and-file Democrats start choosing leaders who represent America's values and genuinely support American troops, I fear they may continue to be a party that even die-hard Democrats from the Greatest Generation will find themselves unable to support.
As far as the situation in Iraq is concerned, suffice it to say that things are going much better over there than is being reported, and I am confident that the voter participation in the upcoming constitutional referendum and in December's elections will confirm that.
The anti-Iraqi forces seem to win the battle for daily headlines, but we win on the big events–because, as on January 30th, the victory was so big as to be undeniable. More important that scoring PR points, though, is the fact that life of the average Iraqi is improving and the legitimacy of the new government is growing.
The phrase that stuck out for me: "Our nation needs two parties that believe in America as a great country." I think Galston and Kamarck would agree. I certainly do.
