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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Guide Weather Subscribe Contact Us November 22, 2004 A look at what Democrats must abandon By Hunter Greer Ashland Political columnists from across the spectrum have asserted that Democrats must give up one or more stances that conservatives call "liberal," but so far no columnist has the courage to be specific. So I'll go first. Self-disclosure: I see myself as an early-1960s Berkeley liberal, which makes me center-right today. Then again, those of us who grew up in Berkeley, Calif., have always been more conservative than Berkeleyites from Ohio. Many of the ideas that follow are from my unpublishable manuscript "A Style Guide for Arguments." We'll need a definition. "Liberal" as a party began in the UK with Henry Palmerson in 1859. "Liberal" meant, and should still mean, giving an even break to blacks, Jews, and even the Irish. The UK Liberals disappeared, however, while David Lloyd George was the Liberal prime minister during World War I. Why? The party disappeared because it had annihilated the opposition and thereby eliminated distinctions; both parties had become liberal. Liberalism also won a landslide in the U.S. - but not until the end of U.S. apartheid in the late-1960s. Today not even Trent Lott seriously believes that blacks, Jews, and even the Irish are unworthy of having their votes bought. "Liberal" became, instead of an uphill fight for a level playing field, a grab bag of left ideas, some worthy and some not. Bad ideas that Democrats must give up: 1. Affirmative action: Although the people hurt are a minority (young purebred European-American males) and the deleterious effects trivial in the aggregate, affirmative action is nevertheless a test of societal intelligence. The more diverse the US becomes, the more it's true that fairness demands meritocracy. Remember that affirmative action was a creation of Richard Nixon; Hubert Humphrey vehemently opposed quotas. Affirmative action is how Dan Quayle got into law school. I rest my case. 2. Sympathy for illegal immigration: Unionism and illegal immigration are incompatible and have been throughout U.S. history. Pick one or the other. I pick legally resident workers. 3. Marxism: As George Orwell said, it takes an intellectual to be this dumb. Read the Karl Marx chapter in Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals": Marx's research was fraudulent even in describing conditions 150 years ago, and he stole the aphorisms. 4. Compassion: Feelings are necessarily between two sentient beings; compassion in the hands of government is graft. The sloppier the U.S. gets toward standards, the more likely that only scions with brand names can rise above the sludge of unearned degrees - Dubya Bush, for example. 5. Animal rights: Only human beings have rights. 6. Hypocritical environmentalism: Drilling for oil in cute areas of the U.S. is the only alternative to fighting in Iraq, no matter how often you take the bus. (Never mind - blood for oil turned out to be without the oil.) Sorry, but supertankers from Bahrain can founder anywhere - even off Alaska. (But you should still take the bus and scrap the SUV.) Principles that Democrats cannot abandon: 1. Removal of monopolies: I can't break up Standard Oil by myself, but our government can. Why is there no public discussion of the length of Bill Gates' prison term? 2. Progressive taxation: The first U.S. income tax was Lincoln's idea, and it was steeply progressive - even before robber barons. 3. Public education: The idea's been around since the profoundly illiberal 1820s. Even childless Libertarians should by law contribute to a reduction in skateboard noise for six hours per weekday. 4. Requiring crime to have a victim. 5. Legal abortion: Abortions happen; the choice is alleys or clinics. Issues the Democrats must have the courage to finesse: 1. Death penalty: Nobody should die without double-blind DNA evidence. Then go with whatever offers the most crime prevention per taxpayer buck. 2. Gay marriage: If governments are out of the business of enforcing monogamy, and if almost everyone agrees on the right to choose one's heirs and hospital visitors, and if nobody disputes that government has always been in charge of apportioning money and children, then what's left is religion, not government. Keep church and state separate. Privatize. I'll be adding to and revising these lists for the next four years. 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