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Paul R. Hollrah, O.E.
Rising Above the Rabble
October 19,
2009
During the 1881 gubernatorial election in Mississippi, the
segregationist Democrat, Robert Lowry, had nothing but disdain for his
independent opponent, Benjamin King, and those who supported him...a
coalition of "dissident farmers, Republicans, and blacks,” people who,
from Lowry’s KKK-oriented perspective, were "gutter trash.”
In his book, Political Culture of the 19th Century South,
author Bradley G. Bond credits Lowry with one of the most profound
statements ever made by an American politician. In his stump speeches he
was often heard to say, in reference to his opponent and his opponent’s
Republican supporters, black and white, "As the stream could not rise
above its source, neither can the candidate rise above his
constituency.”
Truer words were never spoken. So what meaning does Lowry’s profound
metaphor have in terms of contemporary American politics, especially for
the millions of good and decent people who never stop to consider what
the Democratic Party is all about, but who continue to identify
themselves as members of that party?
For those who like to say with absolutely certainty, but with no basis
in fact, that there is "not a dimes worth of difference” between the two
major parties, consider this: the Republican Party is composed primarily
of individuals whose primary political interest is in being protected
from the excesses of a powerful and impersonal government, while the
Democratic Party is composed, almost without exception, of individuals
and organizations whose primary political interest is in receiving
some special benefit or consideration from government.
For example, the Democratic Party of today is not the party of working
men and women...those who tend to think of themselves as the "common”
man. It is the party of corrupt labor bosses, the public employees’
unions, and the thuggish Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
In 1945, some 36% of American workers were
represented by labor unions. For decades the AFL-CIO, the United Auto
Workers, and the Teamsters were all-powerful. They owned the Democratic
Party...lock, stock, and barrel...and whatever they wanted from
congressional Democrats and from Democratic presidents, right or wrong,
they got. No questions asked.
However, when the Federal Election Campaign
Act of 1974 created a level playing field in the political arena between
business and labor, it soon became evident that labor could not play on
a level playing field. Private sector union membership leveled off and
then went into a slow and steady decline. Today, unions represent only
12.5 percent of the U.S. work force, a number that is deceiving because
36.5 percent of unionized workers are public employees: postal workers,
teachers, and other government employees. The percentage of union
workers in the private sector is now less than 8%.
To reverse their long slide into economic
obscurity, labor leaders have recently devised a new organizing
technique called "card check,” one of the most evil concepts in the
history of labor-management relations. Under "card check,” secret ballot
representation elections would be done away with and union organizers
would be allowed to solicit individual workers on the job in a targeted
non-union workplace, pressuring them to sign cards in favor of union
representation. Those who refused to sign cards on the job would receive
"outreach” visits in their homes by teams of union organizers,
strong-arm thugs who would not hesitate to use violence and other forms
of intimidation to obtain a signature on a union election card.
Although it is reminiscent of the feared
"knock on the door” techniques employed by Gestapo agents of the Third
Reich, "card check” has not been a tough sell in the Obama
administration or in the Democrat-controlled Congress. Obama and
congressional Democrats think it’s a grand idea...so long as the unions
continue to pour huge sums of money into Democratic campaigns, and so
long as they continue to provide strong-arm "muscle” for the party when
needed.
Can the Democratic Party rise above its
relationship with corrupt labor bosses? Not likely.
One of the most significant factors in the
high cost of medical care in the United States is the cost of frivolous
lawsuits. Many physicians, of all specialties, are burdened with
malpractice insurance premiums amounting to hundreds of thousands of
dollars per year. In Dade County, Florida, for example, medical
malpractice insurance premiums for obstetricians rose to as much as
$277,000 per year. If an obstetrician maintains a caseload of 60
patients throughout any given year, the cost per patient comes to
$4,600, just to buy protection from trial lawyers.
In response, physicians in all medical
specialties, in all parts of the country, have learned to practice
"defensive” medicine, ordering unnecessary tests and procedures as a way
of protecting themselves from trial lawyers pursuing frivolous lawsuits,
often based on "junk” science. Yet, as the Congress considers
much-needed healthcare reform, designed to make health insurance
available and affordable for every American family, Obama and the
Democratic leaders in Congress cower in fear of the American Trial
Lawyers Association, a major source of money for the Democratic Party
and its candidates.
Can the Democratic Party rise above its
slovenly obeisance to trial lawyers? Not likely.
According to James Bovard, writing for
The Freeman, teacher monopoly-bargaining laws (forcing local
school boards to deal with unions) in 34 states cover 67 percent of the
nation's teachers. Teachers unions have worked to destroy local control
of education, subvert educational standards, undermine teacher
accountability, and deny parents a meaningful voice in their own
children's education. Unions have launched strikes to prevent or
restrict "parental interference” in public education, and they have
stood in the way of meaningful reforms such as school vouchers, charter
schools, and merit pay for teachers. In the meantime, classroom teachers
purposely dumb-down our children, using every possible device to turn
our children into obedient little left wing robots.
The teachers unions...the National
Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers
(AFT)...are currently the most powerful special interest lobbies in
Washington and in the state capitals. Along with the major trade unions,
public employee unions, trial lawyers, radical feminists, abortion
rights activists, radical environmentalists, and gay and lesbian
activists, the teachers unions own the Democratic Party, and neither
Obama nor the Democratic members of Congress have the political will or
the courage to challenge them.
Will the Democratic Party ever rise to
put the best interests of our children above the countless millions of
dollars that the NEA and the AFT regularly contribute to the party and
its candidates? Not likely.
In election after election, African Americans
parade to the polls and cast 90-95% of their votes for Democratic
candidates. They appear unaware that the Democratic Party was the
pro-slavery party, the party that opposed citizenship and voting rights
for blacks, the party that wrote and enforced the Black Codes and the
Jim Crow Laws, and the party that used the Ku Klux Klan as its
paramilitary arm to keep blacks "in their place,” murdering, raping, and
brutalizing thousands of black Americans during their century-long reign
of terror.
It was left to Senate
Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, in 1957, to put into words what has
always been and what remains the prevailing attitude toward blacks among
white Democrats. In reluctantly agreeing to support President Dwight
Eisenhower’s civil rights agenda, Johnson said,
"These Negroes, they're getting
pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got
something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their
uppityness. Now, we've got to do something about this; we've got to give
them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to
make a difference…”
Yet black voters stream to the polls each election and
pull the lever for every Democrat on the ballot. One could argue that,
for a black man to identify with the Democratic Party is no less amoral
than for a Holocaust survivor to identify with the Nazi Party.
So can we expect the Democratic Party to ever rise above
its racist past and present? Not likely.
The Democratic Party as we know it today is the party of
the labor bosses, the party of trial lawyers, the party of unionized
teachers, the party of pro-abortion zealots, the party of radical
anti-growth environmentalists, the party of special rights for gays and
lesbians, and the party of fraud, violence, and intimidation in
elections...the party of ACORN.
The Democratic Party is all of these
things, individually and collectively. It cannot escape what it is, it
cannot deny what it stands for, and it cannot ignore its past. And
although millions of decent, hardworking, and patriotic Americans
continue to affiliate with the party, they cannot escape the stain that
their attachment to the party places on their good name.
To identify oneself with the Democratic Party is to
make common cause with the constituencies that swell its numbers, that
fund its candidates, that provide its electoral majorities, and that
write its agenda. So the next time a Democrat gives you a hard time for
being a dedicated Republican, just turn to them and say, "A very wise
old Democrat once said that, ‘as the stream could not rise above its
source, neither can the party rise above its constituencies.’ So what’s
it like to be a member of the ACORN Party?” |
