Politicians vs Constituents
(Government,Politics,Society)

A lot of negative things are said about the democratic party, and I've said quite a few myself. But all those things said don't necessarily apply to democratic constituents.

The democratic party is composed of two factions: the politicians and the voters (like republicans, a lot of democrats don't vote; but for the purposes of this essay, we'll call them "voters" anyway).

The politicians of the democratic party are much like those of the republican party. Consider: how many politicians on either side are vastly richer when they leave office than when they entered? A great many of them. And it's not because their congressional salaries are so high. Somehow money just sort of lands in their laps as a result of being in office. Hmm.

Politicians lie when they're on the stump. They're going to do this that and the other thing for everyone they talk to, once they get elected. Sure they are. Worse, they say one thing to one group, and another to a different group. Whatever plays to that group.

Politicians don't work very hard. They have huge staffs to do most of their work for them. Worse, they often vote according to a political agenda set down by the leadership of their house of congress. Rather than on a by-issue basis according to their conscience, and significant research of issues.

The American people have a lot of very good reasons to demonize politicians. And it shows in surveys of public support for their government. At the present, it is at almost its lowest ebb.

In particular, those on the right demonize democratic politicians for their shameless antics. Example: Nancy Pelosi, leader of the democratic majority in the House of Representatives. You can scan through clips of her speeches and wonder if she believes that her constituents have no memory at all. Her most famous quote was that we had to pass Obamacare in order to know what was in it. Huh? She was right of course, because Obamacare was just skeleton legislation designed to implement a whole government bureaucracy to pass regulations which had the force of law. Rather than congress doing their job of passing laws, they wanted to leave it to a newly created bureaucracy.

Democratic politicians rarely solve the problems they say they will. Ample proof lies in any traditionally democratic stronghold city. Considering the dismal and worsening conditions in these cities, it's a wonder democrats are still allowed to run things.

Democratic politicians pander to causes which should be ignored, in order to grab votes from grievance groups. Democrats have been front and center in championing gay marriage. But there are several problems with this. First, homosexuals make up a very small fraction of the population. Why cater to them? Second, marriage didn't need to be redefined to cater to gays. The government got involved in marriage when white and black people wanted to intermarry. This was racist. There's no current reason for government to be involved in the institution of marriage. "Civil Unions" would serve to resolve virtually all the "marriage" problems that gays have. Get the government out of the marriage business, and enact civil unions. No democrat ever presented this solution. Better to pander to the gays. Votes.

One thing many democratic voters probably haven't thought of is that giving the government more powers gives politicians more powers. Given the current mistrust of government, do we really want these people given more power? Few of them have proven they can administer or manage anything. And we want to give them more power?

So democratic politicians are bottom feeders. (Yes, many republicans are cut from the same cloth, and it's getter harder every day to tell the difference between the parties.) But what about their constituents?

Most democratic voters are democrat because of their family or their friends or their young age. They long for a world free of the problems they think they see, and believe that if enough government power is applied, these problems can be solved.

Democratic voters aren't evil. They're just naive. First, they have almost no civics education. If they did, they'd know this government was not designed nor intended to solve the problems of the populace. The founding documents outline and mandate a very narrow scope for this government. You want socialism, move to Europe.

Second, they seldom think issues through. They see problems, but they have no idea how to solve them. So they want to kick it upstairs. All those politicians can put their heads together and solve the problem. Problem is, when did a bunch of lawyers ever solve a problem? Typically, they make things more complex and never actually solve the problem. Lawyers are bad enough, but when they become politicians, it just gets worse. Moreover, in almost every case, entrepreneurs and hard working people can do a better job than government. Much of the foreign aid sent to governments around the world ends up in the pockets of politicians. Individuals routinely do more good than governments ever will in poor countries.

Third, they see problems where there aren't any. Of course, there are real problems and they see them. But they also see problems which don't actually exist. And when someone presents something as a problem, they typically agree without any verification that it actually is a problem. Take racism for example. Since the 1960s, this society has made miraculous strides in wiping out racism. And not even because of government. People woke up and recognized racism they didn't realize was there. And wiped it out. Rightly so. There will always be racism, but there is no longer systemic racism in this country. It's a non-problem. Of course, there are organizations whose sole purpose is to call things racist. But that doesn't mean they are.

Fourth, democratic voters seldom actually pitch in to resolve a problem. Some do, but most don't. They want the problems solved, but they don't want to get their hands dirty in the process. Because they've got biology class, or bowling league, or aerobics or whatever. Besides, like I said, they don't know how to solve the problem. And it's a sort of truism that whatever problems the populace don't solve end up in the government's lap. Government could be said to be the accumulated abandonment of responsibility of a people.

My point here is that, while we demonize democratic politicians, those same criticisms don't apply to democratic voters. Unfortunately, we typically say "democrats" when we really mean the bottom feeders in government. I'm not letting democratic voters off the hook. To oversimplify, I'd say democratic politicians are evil. Democratic voters are just ignorant.

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