I was wrong. Now, don’t get worried – I recall this happening once before, and I recovered from it quite nicely then. But the Democratic Party has accomplished an amazing feat over the last 18 days. They have convinced me that I was thoroughly mistaken when I said it didn’t really matter which party won the presidential race.
It matters. It matters, as Anne Coulter eloquently put it, because the Democrats are “lying thieves.” And it is no accident that the lying thieves are concentrated in the Democratic Party.
As Lew Rockwell says, “Expansive government divides society into two castes, those who give up their money to the State and those who take money from the State.” The first group is composed of the productive members of society, those who can make their living through voluntary exchanges that benefit both parties involved. The second group consists of thieves and parasites.
The Democratic Party core of support comes from just a few groups, such as union workers, especially government union workers, trial lawyers, and those who receive government assistance. These groups have something in common – they all rely on the threat of government violence for their sustenance. In other words, the Democratic Party is the party of the thieves and parasites.
Now it is true that there are good people in government positions. There are teachers who really try to teach and earn their paychecks. There are cops who are trying to uphold the rule of law. There are military personnel who sincerely love the country and want to help defend it. There are garbage men who do their best picking up the trash. There is even, believe it or not, a Congressman who is trying to uphold the Constitution! But the number of government employees that is just milking the system dwarfs the number of productive people in government.
There is another group, more obscure, but more important to the functioning of the Democratic Party than those mentioned above. I’ll call them the immune-system-suppressers for the parasites. They live in the media, the universities, and the political class. Their role is to quiet the fears of the productive, to lull them to sleep, to convince sub-groups of productive people that their interests diverge from those of other productive people, and align with those of the parasites. The reward for this service is to gain a place at the head of the legions of parasites, to get the first, freshest blood drawn from the host. It must be the sincere hope of those of this class that the host is quite healthy, and that the parasitism can continue at least as long as they are alive.
Most of this latter class is completely cynical. They are educated enough to understand that the economics of the Democratic Party, of state intervention, must eventually lead to collapse, as the productive host is sucked dry. However, in the meantime, they get to live high on the hog. They can feed their egos by making important pronouncements on the Sunday morning talk shows. The whole host of parasites regards them as heroes, and never resents the high salaries that they draw.
But these people know that they are just respectable thieves. Because of this, they will do anything to retain their grip on power and prevent their own exposure. If the meaning of the word ‘is’ can be changed to suit their purposes, grand! If they can shrug off crimes with a phrase like “no controlling legal authority,” then use it! If an opponent can be smeared by somehow implying that he might as well have been at the wheel of the pickup truck that dragged James Byrd, well, so be it.
Perhaps some innocent people in some obscure country, like, say, Iraq, Sudan or Kosovo, have to die so that these thieves can maintain power. Well, they weren’t voters anyway, now, were they? Perhaps the immune-system-suppressers have to ignore a law or two, appeal to a kangaroo court or two, to get their man elected. If they have to call a woman who is simply enforcing the law a “crook” and a “Soviet Commissar,” well, she had it coming! Hey, it’s all about who runs things until the collapse of the host, anyway, so what does that matter?
It is true that the Republican Party is far from being an ideal defender of the productive. All too often, its promise to us is that it will allow the parasites to suck up just 35% of our income, instead of 40%. Instead of allowing the government to force us to give it money “for our retirement,” the Republicans propose that the government force us to give Fidelity money for our retirement. Rather than defending our right to allow whomever we want on our property, the Republicans protest that we shouldn’t, at any dinner party for ten, be forced to have exactly two blacks, one Hispanic, and .5 Asians – a sincere effort to invite minorities will do. The Republicans are too timid in our defense, too afraid to have Charlie Rose think they are ill mannered.
It’s time to stop the civility. Our side has been crippled by a failure to admit just how corrupt the other side is. (Many rank-and-file Democrats are, of course, not corrupt or evil – they are merely mistaken. Who can blame them? They were probably educated in… public schools! Our job is to show these people the error of their ways. But those at the top generally know how destructive their policies are.) The Republicans are supposed to take every Democratic smear with a shrug and a polite denial, while any attempt to point out what the Democrats are really up to is “hate speech.” Democrats can crisscross the country saying that George Bush will appoint Supreme Court justices who consider blacks only 60% of a person, and the media never lifts an eyebrow. But, as Democrats attempt to steal an election in broad daylight, the chattering class considers it “inflammatory” for Republicans to point this out.
Lew is surely correct when he says: “But the solution to the problem is more complicated than simply electing Republicans, who can sound fabulous in opposition but inevitably sell out once in office.” However, we are on the verge of seeing the American Fascist Party – oops, I mean the Democrats – install themselves as the permanent ruling party. As long as they retain presidential power, they can appoint more kangaroo court judges to decide cases in their favor. They can continue to flood the country with immigrants, then rush to grant them citizenship right before an election, as they have done for the last two presidential elections. They will change the census laws so that millions of new “citizens” can be discovered in Democratic districts. And they will continue their frantic efforts to disarm the populace before their raw power grab becomes too obvious.
As imperfect and flawed as the Republican Party may be, it is the only major political force standing for the interests of the productive. We cannot leave ourselves in the position of an idealist who, when attacked by a vicious beast, disdains the stick next to him – his best defense – because it is cracked in a few places. If this stick is the best weapon we have, we must take it up and brandish it against our foe.
November 27, 2000
Gene Callahan is a regular contributor to mises.org.
2000, Gene Callahan
