Brain Fertilizer

I was flipping through the channels and happened on CSPAN's (re?) broadcast of Kerry announcing Edwards as his running mate.

Both men said something to the effect of, "If elected, we will restore the true American values," but neither of them said what those values are. Now, "restore" indicates that, as a nation, we are not currently embodying American values. That is truly fascinating, because I thought America did stand for justice and freedom and freedom of opportunity, and that's exactly what we are doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, and with substantial tax cuts that have given us the hottest economy in 20 years.

In fact, looking at the record of John Kerry and the Democrats as a whole, I guess what they mean is "true American values" include:

1) Being paid to do a job, but avoiding all the major responsibilities of that job. Further, spending "company" hours pursuing a better-paying, more prestigious job but refusing to resign until you know how it turns out.

2) Coddling dictators like Fidel Castro, et al (the list is far too long...suffice to say if a guy is Communist and a ruthless Dictator, Democrats love him)

3) Negotiating with terrorists and madmen like Kim Jong-il and Yassir Arafat without actually doing anything to ensure they keep up their end of the bargain

4) Eroding/ignoring/infringing a specific and clearly worded Constitutional right to bear arms but resisting any attempt to restrict/regulate rights never mentioned in the Constitution, but only tangentially derived from ambiguous clauses.

5) Campaigning for the increasing secularization of America, continually increasing the restrictions on religious displays or expressions...but expanding and guaranteeing the expression and display of vulgarity, profanity, and obscenity.

6) Soliciting and accepting campaign contributions from agents of Communist nations.

7) Raising taxes on the middle class and upper class while simultaneously creating loopholes for the upper class to exploit to avoid paying taxes.

8) Ignoring and/or deliberately sidestepping established procedural norms in direct violation of clearly-worded instructions in the US Constitution in order to prevent a justly-elected majority from carrying out their duty.

I'll add more later, but for a start, those are some interesting values the Democrats adhere to, eh? I can provide specific examples for each of those, if you like.

If any of my liberal/Democrat readers want to provide some serious suggestions of what those values Kerry and Edwards were talking about are, I'd like to hear them. I think they are being deliberately vague because they know there's nothing they can point to that President Bush doesn't already embody, and what President Bush doesn't embody, people don't like, i.e., racism inherent to "affirmative action", welfare-state entitlements, higher taxes, class warfare, socialized medicine. These things simply don't play well to a public that didn't endure the Great Depression, and that's why the Democrat Party is growing increasingly marginalized, owing its existence only to a few "single issue" planks like abortion and SSM.

I won't deride any of the suggestions of what values Kerry wants to bring back brought up by any Democrats, but be prepared to support them. Meaning, "American values means acting multilaterally" or "American values respect the sovereignty of foreign nations" will pretty much get you an automatic failing grade...unless you can argue it well. But bring your "A" game, because I won't hesitate to pick at any flaws I perceive.