The Telos of the Democratic party

As I was listening last night to the ineffably slick and smarmy John Edwards’s latest installment in his “98-percent-of-us-are-struggling-every-day-just-to-get-by-and-are-just-an-inch-away-from-destitution-in-this-wealthiest-and-most-prosperous-country-in-the-world-but-if-we-all-work-together-and-elect-John-Kerry-we-can-get-the-government-to-take-care-of-all-our-needs-and-that’s-what-makes-us-such-a-great-and-hopeful-country” speech, topped off with the refrain of “Hope is on the way,” I thought of an enhanced version of this demagogic spiel, showing where the Democrats (with the Republicans obediently following two steps behind) are ultimately heading with the idea, pushed by Edwards, that the overriding purpose of government is to supply all our personal needs and make us totally secure for life. It goes something like this:

If your wife just had her second baby and you want to be home with her for the next ten months to help her take care of the baby but you can’t because you have a nine-to-five job and you can’t afford to quit it,

HOPE IS ON THE WAY

If you’re a woman and you want to start your own business but you don’t have any skills or capital,

HOPE IS ON THE WAY

If you’re a black or Hispanic high school student with an IQ of 100 and a B- average and you’ve gotten into your state university but you want to go to Yale but your family can’t afford it,

HOPE IS ON THE WAY

If your social opportunities are limited because you’re obese but you can’t afford your own personal trainer,

HOPE IS ON THE WAY

If you’re an illegal alien who has been working in the United States and loyally and patriotically contributing to our economy for the last five weeks and you want to become a U.S. citizen so you can bring your whole family with you to the U.S.,

HOPE IS ON THE WAY

If you live in a Third-World country that doesn’t have the same variety of opportunities and life experiences that are available in America,

HOPE IS ON THE WAY

If you’re a criminal alien and can’t afford a sex change operation,

HOPE IS ON THE WAY

If you feel that America is a deeply racist country in every molecule of its being but that too many people deny this and don’t talk nearly enough about race because (as John Edwards tells us) we should be talking about race all the time,

HOPE IS ON THE WAY

(The reader can fill in more examples on his or her own.)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 29, 2004 04:05 PM | Send