Junto Boys

SENATE DEMOCRATS LOOKING FOR AN IDENTITY

One of the problems of the media, I think, is their inability to actually explain the meaning of the words used in politics. On Wednesday during the beginnings of the Senate fight Democrats left the floor and walked down the Senate steps to a pre-set podium with a sign that read, “Save our Democracy.”

Is that what Senate Democrats are fighting for, democracy? They’re trying to prevent democracy by preventing a vote. What they’re fighting for is the Senate precedent of filibusters. What precedent they’re fighting for is vague. No longer can a single Senator drone on like we saw in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Now you have to have 41 people willing to go along with the delay. What a filibuster is has changed many times in the past and changing it now isn’t going to hurt the Senate anymore than the last time those rules were altered.

But more importantly, Senate Democrats are hitching their wagon to precedent and thus the rules of the Senate, and therefore the consistency of the rule of law. The rule of law is the basis of a republican form of government not a democratic one. The bill of rights and the constitution in general is a republican document because it states what a majority cannot do to a minority.

The U.S. Constitution use to mean something in this country before the New Deal and the Supreme Court led by Earl Warren began re-inventing America. What Democrats learned in the 20th century is that they could gain power by buying people’s votes through government largesse. Since income redistribution is unconstitutional according to the 14th amendment’s “Equal Protection” standard, well they just got the right judges to say it wasn’t.

The problem that Democrats have found so far in this century is that people aren’t as anxious to be bought, so the only way Democrats can maintain their ideology is to have judges force it down voter’s throats. It’s funny that as they lose grasp of the one institution that will mandate their minority views, they cite democracy as the virtue in danger.

Now they can no longer win by democratic means, they try republican principles. It won’t be long until they crave a return of the king. But, I guess, they already have the king back or at least an oligarchy, in the form of Federal judges. If they can’t save that, they’ll have to re-invent their entire opposition party much like Tony Blair did in Great Britain.

It’s a shame that the media isn’t interested in the principles behind these fights. It’s also a shame that public schools aren’t teaching these principles. It seems like my property taxes and cable bill could be promoting a smarter America, but we’re getting a louder America instead.