Democrats, Republicans, Who Cares

The Tea Party is very much in vogue at the moment. One of the things that continually amazes me is how the Republicans think that people in the Tea Party will naturally support them. That it is a given that people who identify with the Tea Party ideals (chief among them: limited, less intrusive goverment) will vote "R."

There are even clueless Democrats who think that they are rogues worthy of Tea Party support. Witness Russ Feingold's comments in a debate with his challenger.
Politico: "Russ Feingold courts tea party votes"
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43354.html

Fact is, both parties support big government. Neither is worthy to run this country. Both have proven this again and again. Did the Republicans reduce government under Bush? Of course not. Is Obama any different than any other tax-and-spend Democrat? Of course not, unless you argue that he's in favor of even more taxing and more spending than a typical Democrat!

Here is an excellent essay on this subject, from the American Spectator. America's "ruling class" crosses party lines. Voting one party out in favor of the other does nothing to address the root problem: Government is too big.

Angelo Codevilla: "America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution"
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print

"Differences between Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are of degree, not kind."

"When pollsters ask the American people whether they are likely to vote Republican or Democrat in the next presidential election, Republicans win growing pluralities. But whenever pollsters add the preferences 'undecided,' 'none of the above,' or 'tea party,' these win handily, the Democrats come in second, and the Republicans trail far behind. That is because while most of the voters who call themselves Democrats say that Democratic officials represent them well, only a fourth of the voters who identify themselves as Republicans tell pollsters that Republican officeholders represent them well."

"Our ruling class's agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof."

"Hence our ruling class's standard approach to any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government -- meaning of those who run it, meaning themselves, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc. Hence more power for the ruling class has been our ruling class's solution not just for economic downturns and social ills but also for hurricanes and tornadoes, global cooling and global warming."

"By taxing and parceling out more than a third of what Americans produce, through regulations that reach deep into American life, our ruling class is making itself the arbiter of wealth and poverty."

"Laws and regulations nowadays are longer than ever because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally. For example, the health care bill of 2010 takes more than 2,700 pages to make sure not just that some states will be treated differently from others because their senators offered key political support, but more importantly to codify bargains between the government and various parts of the health care industry, state governments, and large employers about who would receive what benefits (e.g., public employee unions and auto workers) and who would pass what indirect taxes onto the general public."

"The financial regulation bill of 2010, far from setting univocal rules for the entire financial industry in few words, spends some 3,000 pages (at this writing) tilting the field exquisitely toward some and away from others. Even more significantly, these and other products of Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses empower countless boards and commissions arbitrarily to protect some persons and companies, while ruining others. Thus in 2008 the Republican administration first bailed out Bear Stearns, then let Lehman Brothers sink in the ensuing panic, but then rescued Goldman Sachs by infusing cash into its principal debtor, AIG. Then, its Democratic successor used similarly naked discretionary power (and money appropriated for another purpose) to give major stakes in the auto industry to labor unions that support it. Nowadays, the members of our ruling class admit that they do not read the laws. They don't have to. Because modern laws are primarily grants of discretion, all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower."

"The ethanol industry and its ensuing diversions of wealth exist exclusively because of subsidies."

"Any 'green jobs' thus created are by definition creatures of subsidies -- that is, of privilege. What effect creating such privileges may have on 'global warming' is debatable. But it surely increases the number of people dependent on the ruling class, and teaches Americans that satisfying that class is a surer way of making a living than producing goods and services that people want to buy."

"By 2010 some in the ruling class felt confident enough to dispense with the charade. Asked what in the Constitution allows Congress and the president to force every American to purchase health insurance, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi replied: 'Are you serious? Are you serious?'"

"Seldom does a Democratic official or member of the ruling class speak on public affairs without reiterating the litany of his class's claim to authority, contrasting it with opponents who are either uninformed, stupid, racist, shills for business, violent, fundamentalist, or all of the above."