Racism is alive and well--among Dems

As the growing extent and intensity of public opposition to the Obama Administration’s policies threaten to shut down its agenda, defenders of the Administration have resorted to systematic name calling. The most favored epithet is "racist." No less a personage than former President James Earl Carter last week alleged that most of the opposition to the Obama agenda is due to the President’s partly African origins. It is amazing that those same voters who cast their ballots for the President last year but are opposed to his agenda now suddenly have become transformed from public-spirited citizens into bigots.

Democrats have been calling Republicans racists for years, and it is as false as ever. It was the Republican party, after all, which brought about an end to slavery against powerful Democrat opposition. And it was the southern Democrats who maintained apartheid for a century after emancipation and who opposed civil rights legislation until President John Kennedy reluctantly supported Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts to end segregation.

In fact, a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats supported the omnibus Civil Rights Act of 1964, as such southern "liberals" as William Fulbright and Albert Gore, Sr., and former Ku Klux Klan member Robert Byrd, voted "no.".

Kennedy owed his election in the close 1960 contest to the heavy support of black voters in our largest cities, largely because he won the support of King over Republican Richard Nixon. This came at an opportune time, for growing numbers of suburban dwellers were supporting the Republican party.

In spite of the long history of Democrat racism, party leaders seized upon the opposition to the civil rights bill of the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, Sen. Barry Goldwater. Goldwater had a history of opposition to segregation in his home state of Arizona, having desegregated the National Guard. But he believed that the Constitution prohibited the federal government from regulating matters of state jurisdiction.

That vote won Goldwater only five southern states plus Arizona, as he lost to Lyndon Johnson in a landslide. But his opposition to the civil rights bill was enough to earn the racist tag for his party. When Richard Nixon picked a border state governor as his running mate in 1968, enabling him to win several southern states in a very close election, the racist tag stuck.

It is too bad that, in retrospect, Goldwater’s worst fears were vindicated, as the Great Society corrupted the principle of equality from opportunity to entitlement, with affirmative action, goals and timetables and even racial quotas–racial discrimination in reverse.

The same Lyndon Johnson who, as Senate majority leader in the 1950s watered down Republican-sponsored civil rights legislation, became a "born again" civil rights advocate when the electoral needs of his party dictated the shift. But the shocking–and revealing–fact is that there was no change in principle. Whereas Democrat racism once took the form of favoritism for whites, it easily slid over to favoritism for members of racial minorities.

As former President George W. Bush put it one of his 2000 campaign speeches, the Democrats now preach "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Instead of keeping blacks down by denying them the opportunity to advance of their own merits, Democrats now favor hiring or promoting employees, or admitting students, on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

In what black journalist and author Star Parker identifies as the "government plantation," having what used to be called in the slave and segregated South "one drop of Negro blood" makes all the difference. What previously closed doors for millions now opens them.

But it is a trap. Unearned advantages antagonize those losing out, even as the fact of favoritism is not lost on the supposed beneficiaries. "Soft bigotry" benefits only those who, like the slave masters and racists of old, determine who wins and who loses. The modern bureaucratic state, once thought to be based on merit, now teaches us every day that race trumps character.

When Democrats call their critics "racists," they are engaging in what psychologists identify as "projection." Painfully aware of their racist history, Democrats convince themselves that in their current pose as the friend of racial minorities they alone can be trusted with political power. They imagine that Republicans, who do not pose as friends but actually support equal rights, must be racists too unenlightened to appreciate Democrats’ allegedly good intentions.

Democrats believe that if they call Republicans racists long enough the people will forget about slavery and segregation. But the existence of the race-based government plantation gives the whole show away. Race is the Democrat calling card.

Centennial nonpartisan charade

Local elections this fall for school boards and municipal offices (the ones that haven't been canceled for lack of interest) occur in a fog of nonpartisan obscurity. In my Denver Post column this week, I likened the voter's dilemma, absent Republican and Democratic tags to help identify the local candidates, to guessing on unlabeled canned goods at the food bank. The column cited Cherry Creek schools and the city of Centennial, where I reside, as typical cases -- but space didn't allow for specifics. So here are a few of them.

The other day in our neighborhood I noticed a block jammed with parked cars. They belonged to guests at a candidate coffee for John Flerlage, the Democrat hoping to unseat Congressman Mike Coffman next year. His banner adorned the home of Centennial Ward III councilman Patrick Anderson, an activist Democrat who was able to get elected in our heavily Republican area because the ballot allows for no party ID.

Anderson's wife is Jennifer Herrera, who ran for Cherry Creek school board in 2007. She was unhappy with me for distributing an email identifying her as a registered Democrat and Jim O'Brien, the eventual winner, as a Republican.

Jennifer Herrera's brother is Justin Herrera, another Democrat who resides at the same address and ran last year for RTD Board -- nonpartisan again, do you start to see a pattern? The union-backed Herrera lost to Republican Jack O'Boyle, and I again did my bit for open government by noting their respective party identities in a mass email.

My popularity with those good folks no doubt sank lower as a result, and it may go lower still with this blog post. But come on, people, what do you have against sunshine? Are you ashamed of your political party? You want an informed electorate, don't you?

The other council seat here in Ward III is held by the ostensibly nonpartisan Rebecca McClellan. She too is an avid Democrat, having been Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman for Arapahoe County in 2008. As McClellan runs for another term this fall, incumbency will be on her side. Republican challenger Cindy Combs will have the handicap of no party labels on the ballot to guide a GOP-heavy electorate in her direction.

One more example from my idealistic little suburb, where "politics were going to be different" according to the civic founders who incorporated us in 2000, and where I once got in hot water even with fellow Republicans (naive souls) for "soiling" the process with one of my who's-who partisan email slates during campaign season...

This example is Centennial Ward I -- a midterm vacancy contest now occurring between Ron Phelps and Vorry Moon. The nonpartisan gag rule under state law prevents voters from readily knowing that Phelps is with the GOP while Moon is a leading Democrat, chairman of his party's organization in House District 37 where Dems are targeting state Rep. Spencer Swalm.

All that voters will know about Vorry Moon is his previous council service in Centennial, prior to losing a second-term bid to Betty Ann Habig in 2007, and that resume' entry with its accompanying name identification gives him an advantage when the low-profile mail ballot comes out next month.

An unfair advantage in the larger scheme of things, it seems to me -- if we really care about the competitive, accountable elections and governance that two-party politics excels at providing.

Constitution? What's that?

We all know that Barack Obama doesn't think much of the Constitution.  And he certainly won't let it get in the way of the government takeover of health care.Courtesy of  Kim Strassel at the WSJ today comes some insightful commentary about what we can now expect from Obama and the merry leftists in Congress. The Baucus Bill has been subject to Congress' death panel and is DOA. Baucus attempted to craft a bipartisan bill that would enjoy a modicum of Republican support, but he ultimately caved to enough liberal demands that it got sufficiently watered down to appeal to precisely nobody. The Republicans find it too costly and pernicious in its penalties and taxes, and the left finds it far to soft on the insurance companies and other villains of the health care industry. Max tried, but in the end he truly made "mischief of one kind...or another" and got promptly "eaten up".

In any event, Strassel makes the very good point that we should all prepare ourselves for a renewed leftward turn in the health care debate as our President caves to the demands of his leftist base:

...Our bipartisan White House grew weary of the bipartisan process and pressured Mr. Baucus to produce. He jettisoned his colleagues and pushed out a product that Messrs. Grassley and Enzi promptly condemned. The White House did such a good job of suggesting that Ms. Snowe was its GOP patsy—a Republican who'd vote for a ham sandwich, if only they asked—that even the miffed Maine senator has stepped back.

The result is two-fold. With no, or little, GOP support, the only way Mr. Baucus can pry his bill out of committee is to allow the left to have its way. The White House knows this, which is why the president—despite seizing on the Baucus legislation in his speech last week—is already abandoning the finance chief and his bill to the tender mercies of West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller and New York's Chuck Schumer. The White House wants a bill, any bill, and this bloc now holds all the votes in committee. Pity Mr. Baucus, who just got used.

Into the hands of Rockefeller and Schumer we fall. And you can bet that what comes now is a highly partisan bill that will attempt the "public option" in one form or another, and a price tag that will be (conservatively) in the Trillion Dollar range. Worse yet, it will be couched in all sorts of creative accounting and political double speak that the public will think its getting steak when it is really horse meat with lots of sauce on it. Those who were gullible enough to elect Mr. Obama may likely be gullible enough to take his latest sleight of hand at face value.

Worse yet, it is apparent that Obama wants a bill -- any bill -- and will do whatever is necessary to force it through, even if it involves using the reconciliation tool that requires just 51 votes instead of the 60 needed to overcome an inevitable Republican filibuster.

What has changed is Mr. Obama's determination to push a bill through, regardless of what his party, or the public, thinks. The White House will make the case to waverers that the political fallout of a health-care failure will be worse than backlash that comes with voting for a bill. Maybe. Behind that is the further threat that Dems will go this alone, via 50-vote reconciliation, if necessary.

Reconciliation was meant to be used only for finance bills, not for momentous, life-altering legislation like major health care reform. The Framers of the Constitution created a system where major political initiatives such as this would be subject to the normal process of debate, with the rights of the minority (in the form of the filibuster) in place. The system of checks and balances was put into place for a reason -- to slow down the system so that radical change would be difficult and would require the support of the minority party.

But no matter. In the power play now going on in Washington, the left wants its way no matter who gets trampled. Obama is already on record as saying that the Constitution "is an imperfect document", and this might as well apply to the rules around health care legislation as well. He, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer and the others know best, after all -- and they clearly don't care what the people think or want.

We are in for a rough ride. Keep up the pressure on your local Congressional delegation. The only chance we have is that those in Congress will care more about getting elected than actually reforming health care.

Let's make it clear that an "aye" will result in a "nay" next November.

What the left misses in the health debate: innovation

Here's the most important question related to health care reform: if you were sick with a serious illness, where would you rather be? England, Canada or the United States?It is no accident that people who are seriously ill come from all over the world to seek treatment in the United States. Centers of excellence like the Mayo Clinic, Sloan-Kettering, Johns Hopkins and others utilize cutting edge technology and treatment protocols that continually advance the treatment of cancer and other serious problems. They do so with the full participation of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are using research and development to drive innovation. It is the reason that American health care is the most advanced in the world and works miracles on a daily basis. This system works centrally on the profit motive -- something that the left seems to think is a dirty concept. Pharma and biotech companies spend billions on R&D to advance the efficacy of drugs and treatment technology with the promise of a return on their investment. It drives innovation -- and is an aspect of our health care system that has been both misunderstood and demogogued by proponents of national health care. The left -- including our president -- has made villains of the pharmaceutical industry for daring to charge prices that allow them to recoup their massive investments and make a profit. It is as if the left thinks that all this innovation and progress should come for free, or at the very least as a public service. It might work in their ideal vision of how the world works, but it doesn't work in reality.

And herein lies the real issue related to health care reform: the real threat to innovation that makes the American health care system the best in the world. As Rupert Darwell writes today in the Wall Street Journal, what characterizes the National Health Service in Britain is a lack of investment in technology -- something that reflects the fact that the system is based on rationing -- not investment:

The case for ObamaCare, as with the NHS, rests on what might be termed the "lump of health care" fallacy. But in a market-based system triggering one person's contractual rights to health care does not invalidate someone else's health policy. Instead, increased demand for health care incentivizes new drugs, new therapies and better ways of delivering health care. Government-administered systems are so slow and clumsy that they turn the lump of health-care fallacy into a reality. According to the 2002 Wanless report, used by Tony Blair's government to justify a large tax hike to fund the higher spending, the NHS is late to adopt and slow to diffuse new technology. Still, NHS spending more than doubled to £103 billion in 2009-10 from £40 billion in 1999-2000, equivalent to an average growth rate of over 7% a year after inflation.

Darwell also writes that the NHS is inherently "ageist" -- making treatment decisions that expressly deny care to the elderly.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the NHS is institutionally ageist. The elderly have fewer years left to them; why then should they get health-care resources that would benefit a younger person more? An analysis by a senior U.K.-based health-care expert earlier this decade found that in the U.S. health-care spending per capita goes up steeply for the elderly, while the U.K. didn't show the same pattern. The U.K.'s pattern of health-care spending by age had more in common with the former Soviet bloc.

I'm quite certain that nobody in the U.S. wants our health care system to be like the former Soviet Union. But I'm equally certain that those who are promoting a "public option" haven't thought through the long-range ramifications of creating a publicly-financed system. The supporters of "universal health care" are invested in the social justice aspect of the issue -- but they ignore vital economic incentives that have made the U.S. system the best in the world.

Edgar Obama & Charlie McRitter

It's amusing to be a Republican spectator at the feverish Democratic huddle that is Bill Ritter's email list. Day after day, some revved-up copywriter churns out breathless warnings about the sinister threat posed by my side to their side, the dynamic duo of our Governor and our President. Obama hero-worship may be waning in other quarters, but the Ritter campaign still seems to view it as their lifeline for 2010. Reading these bulletins is almost like (and here I date myself) the old ventriloquism act where Edgar "Barack" Bergen threw his voice into the cherubic cheeks of Charlie "Loyal Bill" McCarthy.

My purpose here isn't to debate the merits of what the Ritter campaign is asserting, but merely to marvel with admiration at the strident sycophancy they manage to sustain. Three recent examples...

One from 9/10 entitled "Failing Us All" said in part:

America's broken health care system is failing us all. As President Obama noted last night, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage every day. It could happen to anyone....Thousands of RitterforGovernor.com activists have already emailed their Members of Congress, urging them to rally behind President Obama. But with all the misinformation circulating out there, we must do more to confront the cynics and make our voices heard throughout Colorado.

Earlier this week, the 9/8 dispatch called "A Pep Talk for Colorado's Kids" lamented:

Unfortunately some cynics have decided to use this totally apolitical pep talk to students as an opportunity to gin up fear and anger against the President. With impressively straight faces, extremists like Glenn Beck alleged that the President is trying to "indoctrinate" American children with his political ideology. It's the same folks manufacturing the so-called "birther" controversy, the "death panel" controversy, and every outrageous claim in between. They are dedicated to undermining the President -- no matter what. So I was troubled that some schools here in Colorado gave in to the calls of a very radical fringe by deciding not to allow their students an opportunity to watch the President's important speech in class this morning.

Yup, I was troubled too, Governor. It's gotten even worse than you warned us it would two weeks ago, in an 8/27 message headlined "Trashing Colorado's Progress:"

Our political opponents are courting a radical fringe here in Colorado. One of Governor Ritter's challengers has fully embraced rabidly anti-government "tea parties" and suggested Colorado should reject federal recovery funding -- funding that has already created or saved thousands of jobs in Colorado. Meanwhile another challenger recently dismissed the significance of transitioning to a New Energy Economy in an interview with the Colorado Statesman. He even added that if elected he would throw Governor Ritter's ban on expanding the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site "in the trash," a fringe position which puts him at odds with many in his own party. All this begs the question: what other key accomplishments would our political opponents throw "in the trash" if elected?... One year ago Governor Ritter stood before tens of thousands of Coloradans at the Democratic National Convention... Shortly thereafter Barack Obama took the stage to accept our party's presidential nomination...

"Radical fringe," oooohhh. Doesn't it give you the shivers? But all this does raise (not "beg," thank you) the question: With Obama's poll numbers so low, why does Ritter cling doggedly to his dwindling coattails? Maybe because Ritter's own numbers are low as well. Misery loves company, and besides, what other hero-figure is there for a Democrat in trouble these days? Little Charlie McCarthy had to stay perched on Edgar Bergen's knee and keep mouthing whatever his big pal put forth. It was that or fold up in the vaudeville trunk and go silent altogether.