iheartdemocrats

Based on the subject matter of the past few posts to this site I was accused Wednesday of hating Democrats.

Rubbish.

I don’t hate Democrats. As the saying goes, some of my best friends are Democrats. (No, really, some of my best friends are Democrats.)

I don’t hate them and hate is such a strong word anyway. My problem with Democrats is that I so vigorously disagree with so much of what they believe. My disagreements are not personal. They’re not even philosophical. My disagreements with Democrats arise solely from an adult life spent observing the results that Democratic policies produce.

The point that I have been trying to make of late — for which I now stand accused of hating Democrats – is that 50 years of Democratic policies have produced an empirical record. Examining that record and coming to conclusions about it is not unreasonable. Here are three examples.

First: once great American cities like Chicago, Baltimore and Detroit have been run almost exclusively by Democrats for 50 years or more. To one degree or another, all three stand in physical, fiscal and societal ruin – and these three are far from the only examples.

Second: our welfare system was designed and advanced by Democrats and sold to taxpayers as a means toward eradicating poverty. Nothing even close came to pass. Far from reducing poverty, our monumentally expensive welfare system has instead served to create a permanent welfare class while making poverty all but inescapable for millions of people.

Third: America’s public schools have been under almost total Democratic control for 50 years. The results have been catastrophic.

If, in any of these three examples, the results were better, I’d be a Democrat.

In the 1960s, the arguments over these things were largely academic. A half century later, there is a record to examine. The puzzlement that has driven my commentary these past few weeks is this; why isn’t there more intellectual honesty when it comes to examining that record?

Throughout our history, our politics have largely been played “between the 40s” – to use a football metaphor. My fear is that, given the parlous state of things, if the country chooses another Democrat in 2016, we’ll never get back to midfield again. And based on 50 years of results in places where politics have come to be played all the way on the left end of the field, I fear for our future.

But that still doesn’t mean I hate Democrats.