The Party of Arrogance

I don’t consider myself a Democrat, or a liberal.   To paraphrase much greater men than I, I believe certain truths to be self-evident.   Every American should have access to good health care, global warming should be treated as a real problem, and religion has no place in our government.

It just so happens that these beliefs somehow fall on the left these days.   I’m not without my more conservative views.   How I think a single-payer health care system would be ideal for this country, I think school vouchers is a no-brainer solution to our education crisis.   How I can understand the governments desire to regulate corporations through taxation, I love the idea of FairTax and think it should implemented immediately.

What I’m saying is that I think good ideas can exist on both sides of the aisle.   But it seems more and more the right has become centered around anti-intellectualism and racism.   All this concern over government spending didn’t pop up during Bush’s tripling of the deficit, but when a non-white man became president.   Within a week a whole group of people “want their country back”.

This past Tuesday saw shift in power with the mid-term election.   And how we were sparred the the craziness of Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle, we did get saddled with Rand Paul, and have 4 more years of that Joe Wilson idiot.   The Republicans have taken back the House.   Fixing a broken system is going to be much more difficult with the people who broke it now having more of a say.

But looking over the past couple years, I can’t help but feel the Democrats deserve this.   To be clear, I’m not saying we, the American people who will suffer, deserve this; but the arrogant group who was to busy with their internal bickering and power grabbing certainly had this coming.

I can clearly remember the insane hold ups and debates over health care reform.   I can easily recall two Republican congressmen sitting on Bill Maher’s show with smirks on their faces when they said, “If this bill is so great, why is it not being passed?   They don’t need our votes.”.   This statement was almost completely true.   Sure, the Republicans could filibuster like they do with everything right down to choosing pizza toppings lately.   But in the end the Democrats could have pushed public option health care reform through.   Instead groups like the Blue Dog Democrats, many of which are now in the preverbal dog house, fought against providing health care to Americans.

The same can be said on measures surrounding gay rights and and repelling the Bush tax cuts.   But so afraid are these wimps of sound bites about raising taxes, increasing the deficit or violating “family values”, that they back away from doing the right thing, acting on the mandate of the President when he was voted into office.

The Democrats have squandered away one of the greatest amounts of political capitol this country has ever seen.   And they have squandered it at a time when this country may have needed it more than ever.

As the Party of Ignorance rejoices in their victory, people like myself are left wondering what will happen to a country we love, but see being turned into something different.   The United States was founded on tolerance, compassion, intellect and a desire to be free.   But it was founded by far greater men than we have leading us today.