(11/19/2006)

PAUL E. SCATES

Election Revelations

Do we finally get it?

Let me begin with a quote about the recent election results from William Rusher, former editor of National Review –

The first thing to be noted about Tuesday’s election returns is that they were not, in any serious sense, a Democratic victory. They were, however, a thoroughgoing Republican defeat. The Democrats had practically nothing to do with it. They had no policy proposals to speak of—least of all on Iraq, which they insisted was the central issue. But in a two-party system, if the voters decide to throw the rascals out, their only option is to throw the other rascals in. All the Democrats had to do was be there.” (Italics mine)

The truth of Rusher’s comment simply cannot be denied. I am thrilled that the hypocritical Republicans – nominal party of Conservatism but in practice as much a party of big-government, boondoggling and two-faced, self-serving lies as the Democrats – got their just desserts. But, as Rusher noted, the Democrats just happened to be the only viable alternative.

And that is the shame of modern politics. We alternate between the two major parties, yet we should know by now that it is career politicians in both parties that are the problem. The behavior and betrayal of the Republican Party since 1994 is hardly unusual, and a perfect example of what career politicians will always do when unchecked by “we, the people.”

It’s not what the Republicans failed to accomplish (which was practically every single thing they promised), it’s that they didn’t even try! They were too busy trying to assure re-election, or earmarks for their home district or state, or making nice with the viciously partisan and patently anti-American Democrats to do what they were sent to Washington to do. When the very first thing they did, under then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, was to simply give away to the Democrats the power the American people had given to the Republicans...well, we should have known not to expect too much. And boy, did they deliver it!

Career politicians will inevitably seek their own agenda, the feathering of their own nests. The people’s business falls to a distant second for, as they unctuously argue, they can accomplish nothing if they’re not in power, or don’t have the clout through committee positions, etc. The result in both houses of Congress is the club-like gentility between ideologically opposite Conservative Republicans and liberal (actually socialist) Democrats. Bipartisanship, my eye! When the differences between worldviews are so clear and distinct, it is the lack of partisanship that should alarm us, for it means that one side or the other has abandoned their principles for personal and political expediency.

That is the true wrong committed by the Republican Party this past decade. What is that old saw about power corrupting? Well, look no further than the past few Congresses to see what electoral success has done to the Republicans. Since they had been so long out of power prior to 1994, you might have thought that they would have used their first Congressional majorities in half a century to try and accomplish the Conservative agenda – limiting government, freeing the marketplace from government interference and planning, removing the tax burden from working Americans, finally doing something about illegal immigration, etc.

Will Americans finally recognize that career politicians do not want to do anything that limits government (i.e., their) power? It’s not “obstruction” of the Democrats that is the problem, for at least they stick to their beliefs, however wrong-headed and destructive they are. Republicans didn’t even try to implement the so-called Contract With America, for just the threat of opposition was enough to make them cave in. Where was principle? Where was integrity and honor?

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Republicans got exactly what their behavior deserved. The half of the electorate who haven’t been taken in by liberal rhetoric and its emotional appeal of tolerance, diversity, etc., simply recognized the Republicans’ betrayal and acted accordingly.

No, it was not a Democratic victory, just a good start on what I’ve been promoting for years...throwing the rascals out, all of ‘em. Watch, now, as the Democrats do the same kinds of things, for with career politicians, it’s inevitable. Hopefully, in 2008, we’ll go even farther and defeat even more incumbents. I, for one, am ready and willing to be represented by temporary caretakers of those positions in Congress. Could they do any worse than those who stay there for decades?

Frederick Douglas once wrote, “Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

I hope this election was only the first blow of the American people’s resistance to the injustice and wrongs that we’ve allowed career politicians to commit against us. I hope it’s a sign that the lies, arrogance and self-serving agendas of career politicians in both parties have finally surpassed the limits of our endurance. Regardless of party or professed beliefs, career politicians have but one true ideology: power, prestige and position for themselves. Until we learn that, we’ll continue to be passed back and forth in this political gangbang, while our nation disintegrates before our eyes. How I pray that this election signals our recognition of that fact.