Sometimes the Democrats Do Make Sense

Illinois Review ^ | April 1, 2012 A.D. | John F. Di Leo

[jfd1776]

It’s easy to get carried away, looking at depressing statistics and thinking the worst of them, and be frustrated with the Democratic leadership’s seeming lack of concern for the well-being of the American people. But perhaps we shouldn’t look at these issues one by one, but rather, consider them as a whole, as a “total package”, as they do, and then they might indeed make more sense.

For twenty years, Democrats argued that gasoline prices should be higher, and they worked as hard as they could to drive them up. Now that they’ve succeeded in their goal, it’s easy to blame them, but let’s consider the other statistics and how they all work together, to get a balanced view of the situation.

With real unemployment (counting the longterm unemployed and severely underemployed who’ve dropped off the list due to the government’s creative accounting methods) in the fifteen-to-twenty percent range, we have nearly a fifth fewer workers needing gasoline for their drive to work. Without a job, you don’t need fuel to get there, so you stay home. The gasoline price doesn’t affect that group at all!

These unemployed can’t afford to go shopping, or to the theater, or to restaurants, so their families won’t be using gasoline for these errands and other pleasure-trips. So the gasoline price doesn’t affect them either!

For decades, the American left has been railing against our consumerism, our consumption of so many of the world’s luxuries, produced in factories all over the world for sale in American stores. Now, with unemployment so high, fewer such luxuries are purchased, and the stores and manufacturers making them are struggling, even going under, as a result. That’s a good thing, in their worldview, because it was warping the third world to have the third world get the chance to join western civilization in climbing out of poverty and working toward prosperity. What right to we have to change the lifestyles of those foreigners? They’re called the third world for a reason, after all… they’re not OUR world; we have no business meddling with their lives, giving them opportunity and such. We should leave them alone, and keep our poisonous cash out of their grasping hands.

For decades, the left has complained that American success has enabled Americans to become obese; the ranting and wailing of a hundred magazines and a thousand cable TV shows hasn’t been enough to stop it. So now the economy might do the trick at last: when you can’t afford to eat, you can’t get fat. People may be unemployed, but they’ll be in better health as they slim down. And all that fresh air from standing on highway ramps with cardboard signs, or sitting on the sidewalk with a tin cup, is invigorating; there’s nothing like fresh air and sunlight to boost your health. And better a natural tan from sunlight than one of those fake tans that so many people with jobs go out and buy.

We could go on all day, but I think you get the picture. Complaining about inflation, gasoline prices, unemployment, the cost of living, etc., all one by one, isn’t fair, because each of these things looks terrible under the Democratic party’s watch.

But if we view them as a set, the way the Democrats do, it all makes for a logical, organized worldview. They balance together, achieving a leveling of the standard of living, not just here in the USA but world wide, in a neat and organized downward spiral. The race to the bottom, to what mathematicians call “the lowest common denominator”, has never progressed so well as it has under the Obama administration.

Year after year, the many disparate plans of the Democrats work together like the gears of a machine, to gradually reverse all the complicated improvements that have been confusing the world ever since the dawn of capitalism and the industrial age.

See, it all makes sense, when we just look at Democratic policies not as individual failures but as an organized, combined success, at least on this one annual day that is always dedicated to Democratic politicians and theorists, and to the policies they advocate. Let’s give their ideas a fair hearing, on this (and every) April 1.

Copyright 2012 John F. Di Leo

John F. Di Leo is a Chicago-based Customs broker and international trade compliance trainer. While he is generally a traditional conservative Republican, he tries at least once a year – well, no more than once a year, actually, wouldn’t want to go too far with this process – to understand the Democrats and their policies on the day reserved for them, every April 1.

Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut and the byline and IR URL are included. Follow me on LinkedIn and Facebook!

[Jonty30]

People are consistent with their world point of view.

[Navy Patriot]

I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning.

[Malone LaVeigh]

That’s a good thing, in their worldview, because it was warping the third world to have the third world get the chance to join western civilization in climbing out of poverty and working toward prosperity.

As long as all those third world dictators aren't socking away $millions in their Swiss bank accounts.