Democrats are provoking a public backlash.
Dionysus
HEAD: The Tyranny of the Majority Party
SUB-HEAD: If Democrats insist on passing unpopular laws, they won't control
Congress for long By FRED BARNES
Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator on
Fox News Channel.
Alexis de Tocqueville never met Harry Reid. Had he encountered the Senate
Democratic leader�or President Barack Obama or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi�de
Tocqueville might have learned about a new twist on his concept of the
"tyranny of the majority."
The Frenchman toured America in the 1830s, and published his conclusions in
the classic "Democracy in America." He noted the powerful impact of public
opinion. "That is what forms the majority," he wrote. Congress merely
"represents the majority and obeys it blindly" and so does the president.
They are free to brush aside minority opinion, creating a threat de
Tocqueville described as the "tyranny of the majority."
Democrats in Washington do have large majorities in Congress. But instead of
reflecting popular opinion, they are pursuing wide-ranging initiatives in
defiance of the views of the majority of Americans. This stands de
Tocqueville's concept on its head.
The most striking example is health-care reform. It is intensely unpopular
but was approved by the House in November and the Senate on Christmas Eve.
Asked in a Rasmussen poll in mid-December if they'd prefer no bill to
ObamaCare, 57% said they would. Only 34% said they'd rather ObamaCare be
enacted.
Yet Democrats are forging ahead as if the public actually approves of their
health-care reform. Why, when Republicans are preparing to hammer them on
the issue in next year's elections, would they do that?
Democrats offer different explanations�besides their obsessive attachment to
national health care�which suggests that they aren't quite sure of the
political fallout.
After Senate Democrats locked up the 60th vote to assure Senate passage of
ObamaCare, Mr. Obama sounded worry-free. Risk? What risk? The bill "is a
major step forward for the American people," he said. The president didn't
mention the public's disapproval as expressed in countless polls. Vice
President Joe Biden, in an op-ed in the New York Times, didn't either.
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, is more realistic. While
acknowledging bad poll numbers, he suggested recently on ABC's "This Week"
that enactment of sweeping health-care legislation will melt public
misgivings. "The reality, I think, will trump poll numbers in the dead of
winter as this debate is going on," Mr. Axelrod said.
Ms. Pelosi, too, is brimming with wishful thinking. "Now we will have the
attention placed on the truly great things that are in the bill that we have
in common," she declared recently. And Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) told
Politico, "When people see what is in this bill and when people see what it
does, they will come around."
Then there are the martyrs. Doing a reverse de Tocqueville, willingly
endangering one's political career by voting for ObamaCare, hasn't fazed
Democrat Michael Bennet, the appointed senator from Colorado. He was asked
by CNN's John King whether he'd vote for ObamaCare "if every piece of
evidence tells you, if you support that bill, you'll lose your job." Mr.
Bennet said "yes."
Mr. Bennet isn't the only potential martyr. A Democratic strategist told
Byron York of the Washington Examiner that Mrs. Pelosi "believes losing 20
or even 40 Democratic seats in the House would be an acceptable price for
achieving a goal the party has pursued since Franklin Roosevelt." Now that
Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith has bolted the Democratic Party, Republicans
need 40 seats to capture control of the House.
With large congressional majorities, Democrats decided to forget about Mr.
Obama's campaign theme of bipartisanship. They brook no compromise with
Republicans and forge ahead on issue after issue�health care, cap and trade,
Guantanamo, spending, the deficit�despite the public's mounting disapproval.
That arrogance shaped the economic stimulus passed in February. Republicans
wanted tax cuts to spur investment and create jobs. Democrats rejected that
idea and enacted a huge increase in spending. As unemployment continued to
rise, public opinion turned against the stimulus. Nonetheless, House
Democrats passed a new, smaller stimulus bill last week with the same
emphasis on spending.
Large majorities create what de Tocqueville called a sense of "omnipotence."
This leads to overreaching and spawns dubious ideas. Since Democrats believe
they will benefit from passing any sort of health-care bill regardless of
public opinion, they're committed to passing anything they can call a
"historic" achievement. That makes little sense.
With history in mind, cutting procedural corners becomes acceptable. Thus
Democrats have set arbitrary deadlines, scheduled post-midnight votes and
put limits on debate, all in the name of achieving a breakthrough.
Not that such behavior is anomalous. To pass a Medicare prescription drug
benefit in 2003, Republicans kept the House vote open for three hours to
round up votes. Unlike ObamaCare, however, the drug benefit had popular
support.
This is not the first time in recent memory when a sizeable congressional
majority, feeling self-sufficient, ignored popular opinion at its peril. In
1995, Republicans, led by newly installed House Speaker Newt Gingrich, shut
down the federal government in their fight over spending with President Bill
Clinton. The public sided with Mr. Clinton, and the clash spurred his
re-election in 1996.
William Daley, who was Mr. Clinton's Commerce secretary and is the brother
of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, worries that Democrats are doing now what
Republicans did then: provoking a public backlash. Democrats must
"acknowledge that the agenda of the party's most liberal supporters has not
won the support of a majority of Americans," he wrote last week in the
Washington Post. "Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk
electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections
to come."
"I regard as impious and detestable the maxim that in matters of government
the majority of a people has the right to do everything," de Tocqueville
wrote roughly 175 years ago. But what about a congressional majority�which
lacks a mandate from a majority of Americans�seeking to do everything? The
Frenchman might have dubbed that the "tyranny of the minority."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That needs repeating: Democrats in Washington do have large majorities in
Congress. But instead of reflecting popular opinion, they are pursuing
wide-ranging initiatives in defiance of the views of the majority of
Americans.
SOME COMMENTS FROM THE SITE
AGW Scandal, Acorn, Hockey Sticks, Health Care Final Solutions, Card Check,
it goes on and it is having consequences
America just cracked open a Tsunami sized can of woopazz in NJ and VA
against the Marxist Progressives. And the best part is Pelosi and Reid and
Obama and their supporters posting here just keep pouring gas on the flames.
God [curse] their blackened Saul Alinsky souls.
After America, led by President Ronald Reagan and our outstanding military,
shut down the Soviets and Eastern Europe, the Marxist Progressives had one
last bastion - the Salons on the East and West Coast, and in Chicago.
And the best part is, they are publicly outing themselves everywhere they
can in every media thinking (?) they can get away with this. Painting
targets on their heads is the greatest gift we freedom loving Americans have
been given since the hard won gift of our Country and our Constitution.
Ya gotta love 'em!
This cancer is being eviscerated, one state, one election at a time. And the
momentum is BUILDING.
`````````````````````
You simply cannot first claim (and then insist) that you can extend
healthcare coverage to 10's of millions of people over 10 years with the net
cost addition to the debt over that time period from that generosity being
found to be less than the price of a cup of lemonade. Yet that's what the
Dems did. It's public record.
There can be no debate possible if the absurd is declared the real. Money is
at least real. To hell with everyone of the Dems who voted for this fiscal
insanity.
````````````````````
Camille Paglia at Salon.com:
"Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary
Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed,
Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class
professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one
reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills).
Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized
self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous
these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see
no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful
bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority
and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.
*******************
The new Left: Still maggot ridden, just better washed.
Happy New Year
No Surrender!
Dionysus
John Q Public
> FROM WSJ
>
> HEAD: The Tyranny of the Majority Party
>
> SUB-HEAD: If Democrats insist on passing unpopular laws, they won't
> control Congress for long By FRED BARNES
> Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator
> on Fox News Channel.
>
>
> Alexis de Tocqueville never met Harry Reid. Had he encountered the
> Senate Democratic leader—or President Barack Obama or House Speaker
> Nancy Pelosi—de Tocqueville might have learned about a new twist on his
> concept of the "tyranny of the majority."
>
> The Frenchman toured America in the 1830s, and published his
> conclusions in the classic "Democracy in America." He noted the
> powerful impact of public opinion. "That is what forms the majority,"
> he wrote. Congress merely "represents the majority and obeys it
> blindly" and so does the president. They are free to brush aside
> minority opinion, creating a threat de Tocqueville described as the
> "tyranny of the majority."
>
> Democrats in Washington do have large majorities in Congress. But
> instead of reflecting popular opinion, they are pursuing wide-ranging
> initiatives in defiance of the views of the majority of Americans. This
> stands de Tocqueville's concept on its head.
>
> The most striking example is health-care reform. It is intensely
> unpopular but was approved by the House in November and the Senate on
> Christmas Eve. Asked in a Rasmussen poll in mid-December if they'd
> prefer no bill to ObamaCare, 57% said they would. Only 34% said they'd
> rather ObamaCare be enacted.
>
> Yet Democrats are forging ahead as if the public actually approves of
> their health-care reform. Why, when Republicans are preparing to hammer
> them on the issue in next year's elections, would they do that?
>
> Democrats offer different explanations—besides their obsessive
> attachment to national health care—which suggests that they aren't
> with Republicans and forge ahead on issue after issue—health care, cap
> and trade, Guantanamo, spending, the deficit—despite the public's
> majority—which lacks a mandate from a majority of Americans—seeking to
All the leftwing posters here have the same disease, the disease of
deniability of the
obvious which is turning them all into self destructive lemmings!
Dionysus
"John Q Public" <my2c...@me.com> wrote in message
news:2009123009583575249-my2cents@mecom...
Let's hope they go over the cliff; not single file though, but in a wave.
Dionysus
>
thunder
> FROM WSJ
>
> HEAD: The Tyranny of the Majority Party
>
> SUB-HEAD: If Democrats insist on passing unpopular laws, they won't
> control Congress for long By FRED BARNES
> Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator
> on Fox News Channel.
LOL, Fred Barnes? Didn't he predict a McCain victory? Shows what he
knows.
ArmyOfDorkness
"Dionysus" <no.sur...@never.net> wrote in message
news:p_ednRWVaNLt9abW...@giganews.com...
> FROM WSJ
>
> HEAD: The Tyranny of the Majority Party
>
> SUB-HEAD: If Democrats insist on passing unpopular laws, they won't
> control Congress for long By FRED BARNES
> Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator on
> Fox News Channel.
Nope. No bias there.
Beam Me Up Scotty
Dionysus
"ArmyOfDorkness" <DorkAs...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:PrydnT-2upZOCqbW...@giganews.com...
Nope, no more than tingly leg, the jock sniffer and the clit licker on
MSNBC.
Happy New Year
No surrender!
Dionysus
>
>
>