Recently, I have dropped some remarks here and in various comments elsewhere, on the nature of our current political strife. It's time to expand and clarify these thoughts. For an armature, I'll use this article by Jeffrey Gardner in the Albuquerque Tribune of June 2, 2005.
Jeffry Gardner: Democrats just aren't
They're the true enemies of democracy, as seen in their tantrum over Bolton and U.N.
The conflict between America's political left and right over the largely useless United Nations has winnowed itself down to the battle over President Bush's nominee for U.N. ambassador, John Bolton.
I think not. Consider SCOTUS: In the remaining three years of this administration, and its questionable majority in the Congress, there is certain to be at least one Supreme Court Justice appointment, including that of Chief Justice. There may be as many as three. A lot of "winnowing" left.
Mr. Gardner continues:
For America's left, the United Nations is a treasured petting zoo. We must approach the animals cautiously, lest they become angry and bite the hand that feeds them. Given that you and I finance a sizable chunk of the United Nations' $11 billion annual general budget, that would be our hand.
But the United Nations routinely bites the hand, wrist and arm of the United States. The recent oil-for-food scandal is one example of the disregard with which the organization holds us and another example, again, of the organization's folly.
So why are the Democrats making an issue of Bolton?
Why, indeed? Why would a group of the peoples representatives, allegedly speaking for nearly half of the electorate, discourage a move to appoint a delegate representing the views of his own nation? Why abrogate our national sovereignty to a supra-national organization that, since the reign of Dag Hammarskjold, has consistently sought to replace duly constituted and elected national authority with a faceless bureaucracy that has no center and no foundation but power. And this is an organization that delegates the definition of human rights to Libya, Cuba and Sudan.
Mr. Gardner thinks that:
It's about contempt for Bush - contempt that has blinded the Democrat leadership into thinking it actually is doing something, when in fact it's doing nothing but obstructing.
Again, I think not. The key here is not contempt for the President, however often they may express it, it is fear. The party of fear, the party of discouragement, the party of victimology, is now expressing its true nature. They now believe that this is their time; a time in which cost has replaced value, attitude substitutes for character and their appetites serve in place of desires.
I think it was Ayn Rand who pointed out that there are essentially three forms of human interaction. One can beg and depend on the pity of the intended victim to grant one value that is beyond one's reach.
One can extort and substitute violence for value that is beyond one's understanding.
One can trade, thereby insuring the unconflicted exchange of mutually agreed upon value, representing one's own free effort.
The key here is the term "value" and it points to the critical flaw in the Democrat's program. What have they to offer? I suggest it is lesser power dispensed by greater. Influence and pie-in-the-sky fueled by never ending designation of one group of victims after another, raising need to the level of a moral absolute and worthlessness as the end goal of life and as Rand put it, "the aristocracy of pull". What can this lead to but the "war of all against all", a Hobbsian chaos resembling a kind of animal "Gotterdammerung".
Mr. Gardner makes one more hit and a palpable miss:
I suggest that neither Bolton nor Bush's judicial appointments nor the insidious Patriot Act nor maybe even al-Qaida represent the greatest threats to our democracy today.
That honor goes to a Democratic Party held hostage by its most radical wing, which simply can't muster real, genuine loyal opposition.
They are "hostages" in the same sense as Giuliana Sgrena. Power does not corrupt. It attracts the corruptible.
Too apocalyptic for you Bucky? Then look at what they do in light of what they say. With no disrespect to the chillin' or those who believe a compromise effected through mutual reward can be achieved, ask yourself just what reward is available. Is it simply recess from conflict? In 1938, when the (conservative) government of the United Kingdom was seeking "a peace for our time" and selling out the Czechs, with the support of the party leaders and most of the electorate, one cabinet member said: "Czechoslovakia is not worth the life of a single British soldier." Six and a half years later, 455,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were, you guessed it, dead.
Ask yourself if the reward you work for is a 30% FICA "contribution" with no payout at the end. Ask yourself if surrendering our sovereignty to the rapacious dove will relieve you of having to make a decision on election day. Ask yourself how many more persons or entire peoples will be exterminated by the homicidal thugs encouraged and facilitated by the UN and the party of non-judgement in the name of their "beliefs" or "self-determination".
And to use a term not much favored by the Disloyal Opposition, ask yourself; What's it worth?
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