Are we home yet? A recovering Democrat on being a Republican
Posted at Dean’s World here.
Normally I don’t link to Instapundit because… well… doing so is redundant since most of us read the thing.
That said, Michael Totten, writing while Reynolds is on vacation, writes about the troubles with the Democratic party and then ends:
Plenty of socially liberal people voted for George W. Bush on national security grounds. Some of us would go home again if we could.
On the other hand, some of us wouldn’t. I broke with the Democratic Party after Sept. 11, 2001, when the President prepared for war in Afghanistan and the anti-war Left summoned Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy from the 9th Circle of Hell. The Democratic lurch to the Left after 9-11 was so hard, so anti-populist, that it got me to thinking deeply about what that party means and why it exists.
I grew up as a Democrat. My parents spent the Depression trying to survive, and as late as 1954 they were still making decisions about who got fed and who didn’t (my parents skipped meals so that the kids didn’t have to). FDR was viewed not as just a president, but as a kind of savior of the family since my father did CCC and WPA work. JFK was the first American Saint for Irish-American catholics, and I still remember his portrait next to and just slightly below the painting of the Virgin Mary. My dad was blue collar – and union – and even though his kids got educations and became white collar, I don’t think we’ve ever crossed a picket line.
However, thinking back, after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in ‘68 the Democratic Party and my parent’s view of it seemed to change. Sure we voted straight tickets, but we did more in homage to the party of Kennedy than support of its policies.
9-11 changed all that. I realized that there was one issue that trumped all others: war.
I realized that there were people who were happy to kill me and my family simply for being Americans. I realized that these people were single-minded in their determination and so brainwashed in their beliefs thatit had to be us or them – and I will do everything to make sure we survive.
Gay rights? I believe Gays have a right not to be hung or have walls collapsed upon them. Women’s Rights? I believe that women have a right to not have to walk 3 paces behind a man in a burqa. Religious Freedom? The same nutjobs that want to kill me for being an American also dynamited 2000 year old Buddhist statues and forced Hindus to convert to Islam. Freedom of Expression? You think the PMRC was bad, the Taliban banned all forms of music.
The Democrats didn’t seem to understand this, or perhaps they did and just didn’t care. After all, they had lost power, and the further from power they got the more they entertained the likes of Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky.
After all this, do you think I consider the Democratic party my home? Do you honestly believe that there is anything they can do to “bring me back?” Dean considers Hillary Clinton; I consider her a liar of the first rank who tries to sound nationalistic but can’t help but come across like a limousine liberal in love with transnationalism.
Someone bulldozed my home and built a stripmall in its place, and when that happens you realize that you can never go home again.
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