All one needs to know to understand how Democrats campaign for office can be learned from watching Star Trek, at least its The Next Generation spinoff, as recent actions on the issue of energy concerning Louisiana’s Sen. Mary Landrieu and Rep. Don Cazayoux demonstrate.
First, let’s review a primer of Democrat strategy, and then the important concepts to be learned from ST:TNG. The most basic principle of today’s American political world is that if Democrats and/or liberals display and behave who they really are, they cannot win national elections thus power. Their beliefs and desires are so at odds with the majority’s views in America, as well as what is best for Americans as a whole, that (as long as their opponents express principled conservatism and don’t merely echo the bankrupt liberalism of the Democrats) an informed, thinking electorate will deny them the White House and a majority in Congress.
Therefore, Democrats must present a chimera of what they really are to win. Here is where concepts from ST:TNG can be useful and used. In the science-fiction television series set in the 24th century, science has created holographic imaging that is virtually indistinguishable from reality. Democrats seek to create the same: they want the public to see the holographic images they choose to represent their candidates which will appear to be much closer to the median voter than in reality, not their candidates as they really are.
Also present in the future according to the series is a “cloaking device.” Some galactic powers equip their vessels with these to move around largely undetected. Just so with the Democrats: they employ cloaking devices over various issue preferences of their candidates to hide or obscure as much as possible their true records and issue preferences because, again, nationally they are out of step with the electorate’s.
But if this isn’t enough, Democrats try to resort to another nifty device of the future. Among the advanced powers, the series shows them using “shields” that, to varying degrees and with varying degrees of success, prevent incoming weapons, transportation, and/or communication from occurring relevant the protected object. For Democrats, weaponry concerns them as they do not want opponents pointing out the true beliefs and records of their candidates (called “attacks”) so their frequent response is to rotate between two different kinds of shields, “inoculation” and “relativity.”
The inoculation shield appears when a Democrat with a series of liberal votes or actions attempts to negate that record by arguing he has cast a conservative vote here or there. This is an attempt to fool the public into thinking a small handful of votes entirely defines the candidate, hiding the larger record that really reflects the Democrat.
The relativity shield gets used when a Democrat argues that criticism of his record is something along the lines of “it’s all politics,” “everybody spins things,” “we need constructive conversation,” etc. It attempts to take advantage of the peculiar 20th century idea that just because there is debate about something thereby ineluctably it means there is no fixed definition or solution about that issue. At best this is immature philosophical thinking; at worst it is sophistry. You can talk about something all you want but there always remains an optimal, best understanding of a concept that through the use of knowledge and right reason can be determined, bringing us closest to knowing what it “is.” Or, moving more to the practical, “if it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck ….”
So when Landrieu gets called by her opponent Republican state Treas. John Kennedy on energy policy, her operatives try to employ the inoculation approach, saying this was a one-off favor and she is really “pro-energy.” Thus, she tries to confuse concerning her general overall ideology: she followed a very liberal Democrat on her committee vote, and her very liberal party leadership on the other procedural motions. Regardless, the consequences were the same: no real solution to under-supply of energy for America.
While Landrieu operatives can crow however they like about Landrieu’s “moderation,” statistics show it doesn’t exist. According to the scorecard of the American Conservative Union, lifetime Landrieu scores about 22 where 0 represents somebody voting perfect liberal positions and 100 shows perfect conservatism in votes. To put it another way, more than three times out of four Landrieu has vote liberal. She can tap dance around that all she likes, but the fact is clear: not only is Landrieu a solid, mainstream liberal, but that she is closer to extreme liberalism than the moderate end of the spectrum; the only thing moderate about Landrieu is in reference to the rest of her party where she is the least liberal Democrat.
(And she might not be the least liberal if it weren’t for elections. Her average was closer to 15 her first few years but then her scores crept up in 2001 and 2002 when she was running for reelection. She seems to be running to the center again, for in 2007 she recorded a 40 which actually made her less liberal than some GOP senators for last year.)
Criticism of Cazayoux inspires the relativity shield about him, where his surrogate Louisiana Democrat Rep. Charlie Melancon croaks at (his and) Cazayoux’s failure to vote to demand real energy solutions about how “no matter what the vote is, someone will try to spin it,” to try to explain away refusal to support real energy supply solutions. Melancon entirely is disingenuous with this remark: wise and unwise policy can be ascertained regardless of who says what about it, and while Melancon may create noise pollution about the issue to cloud it by saying this, it’s clear none of he or Cazayoux or Landrieu have accomplished anything constructive on their own, nor through their party, to create more energy for America.
Cazayoux also tries inoculation when he claims he has done “something” about the issue, winning passage of a bill that – hold on for decisive action here – studies the issue (yet again). And he actually stole that from Republicans. But do not be fooled, in no way does this, yet again, bring any viable solution to the problem of energy under-supply. Yet Cazayoux will go to his congressional grave insisting that it did in order to fool the unthinking into believing he really does care about the issue to the public’s benefit.
Conclusion: do not be tricked by these Democrat election-year tactics. Keep your eyes and ears open, do not turn off your brain, and maybe their Republican opponents will assist you revealing to the world who they truly are.
2 comments:
Would you at least admit that Republicans also use similar tactics?
Sure, Democrats may use Photon Torpedoes and Republicans may use Disruptors... but they are still employing the same kind of tactics at the end of the day.
Politics (coming from two roots, poly meaning many and tics meaning blood sucking creatures) at the end of the day is a game of spin.
I prefer the Star Wars analogy to your Star Trek analogy. Things that politicians say can be true, from a certain point of view.
Jeff, you will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.
At the end of the day, Republican opponents are just as likely (if not more likely) to mislead voters on what the Democrats stand for (or what the Republicans themselves stand for).
I personally cannot see how the Republicans will be able to sell John "the most liberal Democrat in the 2004 senatorial election" Kennedy to their conservative voters. And he is not just running on his "fiscal conservatism". He has put up his own little holodeck and cloaking device, supporting issues he opposed just 4 years ago.
I think we need to stop calling them "liberals." There is nothing liberal in the positions of the American Left - they wish to dictate to us what we can say (Fairness Doctrine, political correctness, campaign finance "reform"), whether we can own weapons, what of our earnings we can keep and how we might be able to use that money, what temperature we can set our thermostats to, how we might raise our children, when and where we might practice or demonstrate our religious beliefs, how we might make use of our real property, and even what foods we can eat.
That is not a liberal philosophy. It is TOTALITARIAN. And it must be defined as such. Jeff, please join me in refraining from using the term "liberal" any further - we conservatives are the true liberals in the classical (and correct) sense.
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