Don's Tuesday column

                THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News   12/11/2012

Polarized, irreconcilable partisan divide

By my approximate tally, over 900,000 people have signed secession petitions for all 50 states as of last Friday, the 7^th. No less than seven of those states have accrued over 25,000 signatures, the Obama administration threshold for awarding a staff review of an online proposal. Not surprisingly, Texas has garnered the most signatures. Also unsurprising, given Texan politics, is the addition of a petition by liberals and Democrats in Austin to secede from Texas.

Take a few minutes of your time to make an anonymous statement (full names are not displayed); just enter “petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions” in the Internet address box and check the category “government reform” to display the 84 petitions on that topic. Scroll down to the California secession petition and add your name to the 15,000+ that have already signed. While still futile and pointless, it provides a small bit of humor over a mostly dreary (for we on the right) election.

So, what’s the difference anyway? Don’t the two political parties share a lot in common as Americans who love, and want the best for, their country? We had a hint back in June in graphs titled “Polarization” with the subhead “The gap between Democratics (sic) and Republicans on key social issues has widened over the past 25 years.” See if you find as stunning a difference in the parties’ beliefs as I did. Pew Research Center conducted the poll; the Chicago Tribune made the graphs, provided to the Daily News by McClatchy (MCT).

Under “Safety net,” the “percent (of Democrats) who agree that the government should take care of people who can’t take care of themselves,” is almost twice as high as Republicans (75% to 40%). Under “Labor unions” the “percent who agree labor unions are necessary to protect the working person,” also finds Democrats agree about twice as much as Republicans (82% to 43%).

When asked about “Minorities,” the “percent who agree we should make every effort to improve the position of minorities, even if it means preferential treatment” found Democrats saying yes over 4 times as often as Republicans (52% to 12%). And finally, on “Debt,” the “percent (of Democrats) who agree that the government should help more needy people, even if it means going deeper into debt,” was over three times the rate of Republicans (65% to 20%).

You may conclude, as I did, that on each of these issues, the Democrats support positions that require people to do things that reduce their freedom, deprive them of financial resources or give something to someone that must be taken from someone else. How else would you put the fact that, under the Democrat position on the “Safety net” and “Debt,” you work and earn your money that pays for someone else’s benefit? What’s worse, not only are those earning their own way forced to support the recipients of (welfare, food stamps, EITC, disability, etc), but your children, grandchildren and future generations will be saddled with the burden of repaying the many trillions of dollars that have been borrowed in the futile pursuit of eliminating, or rather subsidizing, poverty.

“Needy people” “who can’t take care of themselves” have for most of America’s history been blessed to receive charity that other people, out of the kindness of their hearts and the generosity of their wallets, have voluntarily given to organizations devoted to helping the poor. The American work ethic and individual responsibility guided those in need to avoid being a burden on others if at all possible. Our existing entitlement/benefit mentality (I’m not including Social Security retirement or Medicare) essentially encourages dependency, forcing others to pay taxes to feed that dependency. That is theft under government order, nothing less.

If you think about it, you will have to agree that the Democrats’ positions on race preferences and labor unions also amount to imposing the will of one group upon another. That is what happens when someone who has failed to qualify for a job is placed ahead of someone who has qualified, due to race. When unionization is forced upon workers, against their preference, they must accept an intermediary between their own labor and skill and the managers and owners best able to determine the value of that labor and its contribution to the profit, even the survival, of the business.

In all four polled subjects, you can see the pattern: Democrats are less supportive of free will (the right to the fruits of one’s own labor) for the rest of us. In a Powerline blog post by Steven Hayward, “Yes, They Are Too Socialists,” a new Gallup poll asked “Just off the top of your head, would you say you have a positive or a negative image of (each of 7 institutions)?” “Small business,” “Free enterprise,” and “Entrepreneurs” garnered 80 to 90 percent positive views of Republicans, slightly less for Democrats.

While Republicans were over 70 percent positive toward “Capitalism” and “Big business,” Democrats could barely muster 40 to 50 percent positive. More revealing, Democrats were 75 percent positive about “The federal government,” three times that of Republicans. Most revealing, however, was the 53 percent positive attitude by Democrats toward “Socialism,” over twice the 23 percent for Republicans. Remember, socialism=one person with a gun pointed at the head of another person demanding his money. It really is that simple.