Democrat Party -- The Party of the Welcoming Big Pre-Tents

Jon Stewart and his crew at the Daily Show actually did some interesting journalism while at the Democratic National Convention (DNC).  See the segment he did on Tolerance here.  DNC delegates and attendees were interviewed and each said that the Democratic Party was the party of the big tent with room for everyone, until they were asked for exceptions.

One young white man at the DNC says that everyone is welcome, "Except unless you own a corporation, or if you’re a hunter, a gun owner, white males."  Yes, though he seemed to feel at home in the Party, he actually excluded white males, with no exceptions.

So let us examine how many Americans are unwelcome in the Democrat Party by his prescription:

• Corporation Owners:  Corporations are owned by their shareholders.  How many Americans own shares in corporations?  A study in 2005 reported that about half of all American households owned stock due to the growth of 401(k) retirement plans.  This is about 57 million households in America.  Of course, many university endowments and union pension funds are also heavily invested in stocks, so university faculty and staff and union members are all very dependent upon the institution they belong to making money on their stock ownership.  In addition, many churches have investments in stock, as do many charitable foundations.  Now even if we exclude all those who are dependent in some way on stock ownership and only count those who actually own a stock or an investment vehicle that owns a stock, the young man has excluded at least half of all Americans, including many millions of women.  In truth, he has just expressed a desire to ex-communicate many millions of women who actually are Democrats.
• Hunters and Gun Owners:  It is estimated that about 52 million households in America have at least one gun.  Gallup reported a poll in October 2011 that found that 47% of American households had a gun on their property.  55% of Republican households had a gun according to this poll, while a sharp recent increase brought the percentage of Democrat households with guns up to 40%.  The young man wants again to make many Democrats unwelcome in his party.  There may be additional bow hunters or trappers who do not own a gun, who are excluded, but I am sure the number is relatively small.
• White Males:  This is a small minority of voting eligible Americans.  According to the 2010 Census, males are 49.2% of the population.  The white population is 63.7% of the population, though the separately grouped Hispanic/Latino population of 16.3% includes many who also think of themselves as white.  If we take the more restrictive 63.7% as white and assume that 49.2% of them are male, then the white male population to be excluded from the Democrat Party is 31.3% of the population.  I expect the Republicans would not be too upset if that complete block of 31.3% of the population voted for them.

While there is very considerable overlap in these three excluded groups, it is also clear that the set of voters who fall into these three excluded groups is much more than half the voting population.  This is especially true since the voting turnout among whites is considerably higher than it is for Black Americans or for Hispanic/Latino Americans.

Virtually every other person interviewed mentioned that they excluded gun owners.  Many of them, who were mostly females, made disparaging remarks about males.  Comments about the owners of businesses were less common.  But even if the Democrat Party delegates were only to exclude gun owners and white males, the party would become a consistent out-of-power party.  The party that likes to claim inclusion and to be the Big Tent party, is really the party of Big Pretense.  In a punning mode, we might call them the party of the Big Pre-Tents.

In a discussion with my oldest daughter recently, I pointed out that it is becoming alarming that the population of college students is approaching 60% female.  I claimed that a good part of the reason for this is that males have been made to feel less than welcome by the education system.  She scoffed at this idea, saying that males just make poor students.  But in the context of the many male-negative comments made by the Democrat Party stalwarts and given the fact that educators are predominantly Democrats, it is entirely unlikely that male students are finding themselves in a welcoming environment when they are in the formal education system.  In the government-run and socialist union-dominated public schools through high school, they are in an unfriendly leftist environment.  Then those who do go off to college often drop out as they find the radical left wing beliefs there incompatible with their interests and with their understanding of the practical and real world.

The attitudes of the committed leftists in control of our education system on the education of American males, particularly white males, are certainly deleterious.  Males want to believe that they are the heroic protectors of women and children and this greatly motivates them to try to work and learn so that they can fill this role.  When the Democrat-dominated education system portrays them, especially white males, as brutes, unfeeling cads, and privileged evil-doing masters at every turn, this is destructive.  Many are fleeing the education battlefield for more peaceful and nurturing pastures where they are less often the victims of discrimination.

U.S. State Dept. Tells U.N. We Are Guilty of Many, Many Human Rights Violations

In an early move to placate the international community, Obama had the U.S. join the U.N. Human Rights Council.  The current member nations of this august body of human rights exemplars include:

Angola
Egypt
Nigeria
South Africa
Zambia
China
Kyrgyzstan
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Russian Federation
Argentina
Bolivia
Cuba

The U.S. just delivered a 29-page report to the Human Rights Council in which the State Department said that some Americans were still victims of discrimination.  In particular, blacks, Latinos, Muslims, South Asians, Native Americans, and gays are victims of high unemployment, hate crimes, poverty, poor housing, lack of access to health care, and discriminatory hiring practices.

The report welcomed "observations and recommendations that can help us on that road to a more perfect union."  The American Civil Liberties Union approved of the Obama administration's submission to the U.N. Human Rights Council, but decried the fact it did not address the issues of "inhumane prison conditions, racial disparities in death penalty cases, and abuses in the immigration system."  The director of the ACLU's human rights program said, "It is time for the U.S. to match its human rights rhetoric with concrete domestic policies and actions and create a human rights culture and infrastructure that promote American values of equality and justice for all."

OK, you have been wondering when I was finally going to step in here and punch this Progressive viewpoint in its sniveling nose.  Did you notice that human rights are always referred to by statists and not individual rights?  They ought to be the same thing, but somehow they never are.  Human rights are always take to include the obligation of some individuals to serve others, usually in some collective group.  So, to be clear and differentiate my viewpoint from the Progressive idea of human rights, I will address these issues on the basis of our individual rights.

Individuals have the right to freedom of association and they have the right to discriminate.  They are not required to choose who they associate with or how they discriminate on a rational basis.  What is more, government would hardly be the agent anyone rational would turn to for the purpose of determining who each individual shall associate with and to dictate to each individual how they should discriminate.  These issues are much too complex for government, which is incredibly simple-minded and totally lacks the knowledge of how each American individual is differentiated and what their values are.  Individuality and those differing values require individuals to discriminate among those with whom they will choose to associate.  What is more, we should have learned long ago that no good comes of individuals forfeiting their own independent judgment to government beyond those basic protections which government provides by preventing itself and individuals from initiating the use of force against one another. 

If I were to refuse to hire any black Adventist person, let us say, that is within my rights, as long as mine is a private company.  The government, on the other hand, cannot refuse to hire Adventist blacks.  Why?  First, because government must treat every individual equally before the law.  Second, government is the only agent in our society allowed to use force against individuals.  That use of force must be tightly controlled to prevent its abusive use.  One of the most important controls is that it must be applied equally to all citizens, so that the majority of citizens will be inclined to feel the need to protect those who have become the victims of government discrimination on the basis of race, religion, peaceful creed, employer or employee, income, or property.  It is government that proves to be the monolithic rights violator because it has a monopoly on the use of force in a society.  Therefore, legitimate government, as defined in our Declaration of Independence, has the sole function of protecting the equal, sovereign rights of every individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That being the case, it is very irrational that this report did not bemoan the fact that the government discriminates against people who are more productive and those who earn more income.  When the ACLU calls upon the American values of equality and justice, where is their outcry against the progressive income tax code?  Or, where is the acknowledgment by the government that it has no right to discriminate against hiring white males for government positions.  Where is the acknowledgment that government cannot claim to treat Americans equally and with justice when it discriminates against firms owned by white males when it lets contracts for goods and services?  Where is there condemnation of the fact that employers are forced to keep employee income and tax records and submit reports to governments without just compensation?

While these awful infractions of unequal and unjust discrimination by the U.S. government go unmentioned, the ACLU bemoans the conditions of prisoners, who are treated better here than almost anywhere in the world.  And what are the immigration abuses they are talking about?  Apparently, our policy is only to deport people who are felons, while illegal border crossings and misdemeanors are ignored.  Where is the abuse in that?  When we provide most government services and force many private companies to provide free charity work to illegal immigrants, it is a puzzle to me that we can be said to be abusive.

It may be true that more blacks receive the death penalty, but that may be less because they are black than because of a combination of the nature of the crimes and their likely being poorer and less able to obtain the services of the better lawyers.

We shall have to wait with bated breath for the constructive comments to come from Cuba, China, the Russian Federation, Zambia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan on how the U.S. might achieve an admirable human rights record.  Do you suppose any of them will do what the ACLU failed to do?  Will they point out that the primary abuses of human rights in the U.S. are due to our government's failure to govern in accordance with our own Declaration of Independence and our Constitution?  Will they point out that our progressive income tax system is a violation of every individual's equal rights to life, the pursuit of happiness, and property?  Do you suppose they will demand that the U.S. government stop its baleful discrimination against the white male minority or the employer minority?