Blame the People

Who is to blame? That is a persistent question in politics, and it becomes more persistent when things don't seem to be going your way. The President and Congress have been extraordinarily bold. The New York Times has done everything in its power back up their play. And yet…it looks like the voters are about to cancel their subscription. While some enlightened organs of thought, like the New Yorker, see sinister cabals at work behind the scenes, the Times and Eugene Robinson have the courage to put the blame squarely where it belongs. The people are to blame. The people have let their heroes down.

We have been told that New Yorkers were more sympathetic to the building of a Mosque, pardon me, an Islamic Center, near ground zero. So the NYT commissioned a poll and found that, well, they aren't, exactly. The Times Editorial tells the disappointing story.

A full 72 percent agreed that people had every right to build a "house of worship" near the site. But only 62 percent acknowledged that right when "house of worship" was changed to "mosque and Islamic community center." Sixty-seven percent thought the mosque planners should find "a less controversial location."

One may disagree with the majority of New Yorkers here, but this is surely a reasonable position. Yes, the Constitution protects the right of Muslims to free exercise. No, this isn't the best place to put your mosque. The Times doesn't merely disagree, they think the majority is retarded.

As the site of America's bloodiest terrorist attack, New York had a great chance to lead by example. Too bad other places are ahead of us. Muslims hold daily prayer services in a chapel in the Pentagon, a place also hallowed by 9/11 dead. The country often has had the wisdom to choose graciousness and reconciliation over triumphalism, as is plain from the many monuments to Confederate soldiers in northern states, including the battlefield at Gettysburg. New Yorkers, like other Americans, have a way to go.

New Yorkers and Americans in general have "way to go" to be as evolved and enlightened as the editors of the New York Times. If we were that evolved, apparently, we would have to build a monument to the terrorist who died in those airplanes. That's going to take a lot of evolution on our part.

Eugene Robinson is also disappointed with Americans.

In the punditry business, it's considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it's impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.

Robinson admits, correctly, that both parties promise painless solutions to our problems. But he thinks that we are being spoiled brats because we are holding the current bunch of office holders to account. He thinks that the solutions to the problems facing the economy, including the astronomically rising public debt and the insolvency of our entitlement programs, will take time to work and therefore require patience on the part of the electorate. Fair enough.

Ought we not, then, at least demand that the party in power present a plan for solving these problems? What is the Democrat's plan for bringing the budget into balance? What is their plan for putting Social Security and Medicare on a sound financial footing? Right now, we are running deficits of a trillion or more a year, just as these programs go into the red. That's not what happens if Obama's plan fails. That's his plan.

The New York Times and Eugene Robinson are right. The people, spoilt and retrograde as they are, just aren't getting with the program.

Comments

[Bill Fleming]

This odd flirtation with Populism and Direct Democracy from the right fascinates me. Completely antithetical to their usual platform, but anything to get votes, I suppose. Looks like now even one of their brilliant professors has been suckered into it. (Just tweakin' ya, KB.)

If this were really a good idea, the SDGOP would be supporting BT Marking.

[donCoyote]

"The country often has had the wisdom to choose graciousness and reconciliation over triumphalism, as is plain from the many monuments to Confederate soldiers in northern states, including the battlefield at Gettysburg."

The first Confederate memorial at Gettysburg wasn't installed until 50 years after the battle a much greater time span than the 9 years that we now face with 9/11. It was the Greek dramatist Menander who wrote "Time is the healer of all necessary evils." I would hope that American Muslims would be cognizant of this.

Also as you walk among the graves at Gettysburg look for the graves of Confederate soldiers. This is an exercise in futility as there are none. Not one. All the Confederate dead were buried in mass graves on the fields of Gettysburg until the mothers, wives and daughters of the Confederacy were allowed to repatriate the dead and give them an honorable burial in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond Virginia. So much for graciousness and reconciliation on behalf of the Union.

[Donald Pay]

This is kinda funny. Eugene Robinson takes a righty talking point, turns it around on them, and then the righties take issue.

[William]

What's funny is, the Left appears to believe that by telling the American people that we're too stupid to appreciate the greatness of our ruling elite, so we should just shut up and vote for them, is a winning strategy for the upcoming elections.

[Donald Pay]

The problem, William, is the right still hasn't figured out that the corporate and financial bigwigs are the ruling elite. When you figure that out, we'll talk.

[William]

That's where I think you're stuck in the 1960s Donald, it's the Democrat Party that's become beholden to the big bucks from the "too big to fail" corporations, the big money from corrupt(and bankrupt) unions, the "race and minority industry" defined by the Al Sharpton / Jesse Jackson style of extortion in the name of "victim-hood", advocating "rights" for felons and illegal aliens and in general appearing to feel there are no economic consequences for the anything they want to do! Well that, and the fact they appear to believe that as a ruling "elite" that Americans in general are too stupid to take care of themselves and they really, really NEED to have the self-anointed elite make all of their decisions for them.

The Democratic Party actually lost the American public a long time ago. They just took advantage of a national distaste for the policies and protracted wars of a liberal Republican (GW) to gain a (temporary) majority in "the wheels of government". Now that the American public has seen "Democrats Gone Wild" for the past few years, they're ready to "change the channel".

The general public has ALWAYS been somewhat "center-right". The Obama Presidency, along with the Pelosi House / Reid Senate majorities has emphatically reminded them of how totally out of touch the Democrat party truly is.

The New York Times is still trying to tell us how "successful" the Democrats have been in passing their legislation. The New York Times and the current Democrat Leadership doesn't appear to realize that what they consider "success" are seen as massive failures by the public at-large.

[Donald Pay]

Nonsense, William. You're stuck in "trickle down land." And, yes, the corporatist Democrats have followed the Republicans into that cesspool, but the way out isn't to keep shoveling money at the rich and powerful. Let's remember it's the Republicans who don't want to take apart the big financial institutions, and who want to beat working people down so they can't stand up to the powerful. So, once you figure out just who the powerful elite is in this country, we'll talk.

[Miranda]

Donald: Are you claiming that the the Democrats are powerless or that they are not elite?

[KB]

Bill: I, for one, do not conflate Democracy with populism. The above examples of liberal rhetoric were not directed against populists (see Glenn Beck) but against the majority of New Yorkers in the one case and the majority of Americans in the other.

Donald: If you are right, then clearly we are doomed. Yet you seem to prefer plutocrat Democrats to plutocrat Republicans. Why? Isn't it clear that the Illuminati will be in control no matter what?

[George Mason]

A few observations: The NYT, Bloomberg, the left in general is incapable of understanding the reasons the majority objects to the building of the "Cordoba center" close to the site of the World Trade Center. Perhaps it is because they remember the universal outrage expressed by muslims to the acts committed on September 11, 2001. In particular they recall the condemnation of the perpetrators of those acts by the cleric who will oversee this mosque. And, of course these people are well aware of why it is called the Cordoba project and why it is so important that it be built as close as possible to the World Trade Center site.
It is certainly encouraging that liberals have suddenly discovered that within the First Amendment lies "The congress shall make no law prohibiting the free practice of religion." Perhaps while they are investigating muslim triumphalism they can also search out the plight of the St. Nicholas congregation and work up some righteous outrage about that.
The people behind the mosque have the right to build where they want. The people of New York are entitled to be upset about it in the same manner liberals are every Christmas when someone erects a creche where people can actually see it.

[KB]

Great posts! GM: your comparison to those who object to the Mosque with those who object to Christian displays on public property is brilliant. I hope you don't mind, but I intend to steal it.

[George Mason]

KB; That's what these posts are for.