I hate to say it, but we Democrats are proving Republicans right. WTF is wrong!?!?
I posted this to facebook this morning, and as you can imagine, it's exploded my facebook. This was on the heels of me blasting my fellow Democrats yesterday about supporting Hillary and Bernie when there's actually and intelligent candidate (such a rarity) to support.
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"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
My fellow Democrats, this used to be our party. Our party represented the perfect balance of individualism and strength of country. We believed that our country was at its greatest when we as a people worked hard -- and smart -- to make ourselves the best we can be. We created exceptionalism, and then we rallied around it. We were proud of ourselves because we made ourselves who we were, and the fact that we did it on our own. And we were proud of our country for the same reason.
What has happened to our party?
As a party, we are barely recognizable from our former self. Today, we seemingly want our country to do everything for us. One of our current front runners for the Democratic nomination is offering up that the government provide free college tuitions and free healthcare. And how do we Democrats respond? The crowd goes crazy! That is the OPPOSITE of "Ask not what your country can do for you!" I support safety nets, but we -- as Republicans like to accuse of us -- really have become the party of hand outs.
We are moving towards a party that, if we had our way, would provide enough assistance to make it easy for everyone to live relatively comfortably, and the reward for hard/smart work and success would drop off significantly as soon as you reach +1 standard deviation on the bell curve of financial success (i.e. push past "middle class"). If we had our way, every square inch of our country would be (figuratively) covered in bubble wrap to protect us from ourselves. We no longer ask our citizens to ask themselves what they can do for their country. We no longer expect hard work from ourselves. We no longer think it's OK for anything to be difficult in life -- Or maybe our definition of "hard work" and "difficult" have changed?
We seem to automatically, or at least default to, thinking those that have become wealthy in life are selfish, bad, and evil -- Rather than appreciating the benefits to our society that they brought while earning their wealth. Our current President (a Democrat) says to those people, "You didn't build that." And while there was an amount of validity in the context around that statement, when we were great as a party, we would have never thought to make such a comment, regardless of the context. We were the party that encouraged people to make something of themselves and be great -- not the party that tried to marginalize people for making something of themselves and being great.
We have always been the party that fought for "the people" -- and that's what has always appealed to me about my party -- But somewhere along the way, fighting for the people turned into simply playing Robin Hood and taking from "the rich" to give to "the people." That is NOT fighting for the people in my book. Nobody wins in that scenario. We need to get back to helping the people learn to fish, instead of just giving the people fish.
We've gone from "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" to seriously considering nominating a Socialist for President.
What has happened to our party?
===================
I posted this to facebook this morning, and as you can imagine, it's exploded my facebook. This was on the heels of me blasting my fellow Democrats yesterday about supporting Hillary and Bernie when there's actually and intelligent candidate (such a rarity) to support.
===============
"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
My fellow Democrats, this used to be our party. Our party represented the perfect balance of individualism and strength of country. We believed that our country was at its greatest when we as a people worked hard -- and smart -- to make ourselves the best we can be. We created exceptionalism, and then we rallied around it. We were proud of ourselves because we made ourselves who we were, and the fact that we did it on our own. And we were proud of our country for the same reason.
What has happened to our party?
As a party, we are barely recognizable from our former self. Today, we seemingly want our country to do everything for us. One of our current front runners for the Democratic nomination is offering up that the government provide free college tuitions and free healthcare. And how do we Democrats respond? The crowd goes crazy! That is the OPPOSITE of "Ask not what your country can do for you!" I support safety nets, but we -- as Republicans like to accuse of us -- really have become the party of hand outs.
We are moving towards a party that, if we had our way, would provide enough assistance to make it easy for everyone to live relatively comfortably, and the reward for hard/smart work and success would drop off significantly as soon as you reach +1 standard deviation on the bell curve of financial success (i.e. push past "middle class"). If we had our way, every square inch of our country would be (figuratively) covered in bubble wrap to protect us from ourselves. We no longer ask our citizens to ask themselves what they can do for their country. We no longer expect hard work from ourselves. We no longer think it's OK for anything to be difficult in life -- Or maybe our definition of "hard work" and "difficult" have changed?
We seem to automatically, or at least default to, thinking those that have become wealthy in life are selfish, bad, and evil -- Rather than appreciating the benefits to our society that they brought while earning their wealth. Our current President (a Democrat) says to those people, "You didn't build that." And while there was an amount of validity in the context around that statement, when we were great as a party, we would have never thought to make such a comment, regardless of the context. We were the party that encouraged people to make something of themselves and be great -- not the party that tried to marginalize people for making something of themselves and being great.
We have always been the party that fought for "the people" -- and that's what has always appealed to me about my party -- But somewhere along the way, fighting for the people turned into simply playing Robin Hood and taking from "the rich" to give to "the people." That is NOT fighting for the people in my book. Nobody wins in that scenario. We need to get back to helping the people learn to fish, instead of just giving the people fish.
We've gone from "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" to seriously considering nominating a Socialist for President.
What has happened to our party?
===================
