Is Democracy Another God that Failed?

Townhall.com ^ | May 27, 2014 | Pat Buchanan

[Kaslin]

On Memorial Day weekend, scores of thousands of bikers arrived here for their annual Rolling Thunder tribute to America's veterans, especially those lost in our wars or left behind.

But this year the tribute has been sullied by a squalid scandal in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Sick vets seeking medical care at the Phoenix VA hospital were put on waiting lists, but never got to see a doctor. Dozens died. Then waiting lists were altered to make it appear that VA staffers had not failed in their duty to provide the vets access to care in the required 14 days. Some vets suffered for months before dying.

There is truly something rotten in the state.

But, rest assured, this scandal of deceit, dishonor and betrayal is not going to go away soon.

For unlike Benghazi and the IRS scandals, the major media are looking into how widespread was this practice of denying care to vets and doctoring waiting lists to lie about what was done, and not done, at the VA hospitals. And as this is both an easily understood and deeply emotional issue, the public is fully engaged.

Our commander in chief wisely used his weekend to visit our troops in Afghanistan. But between Memorial Day and June 6, when the president speaks at Normandy on the 70th anniversary of D-Day, this metastasizing scandal is going to bleed his administration.

And this crisis gripping the second largest Cabinet department underscores a larger truth.

The core belief of liberalism, the political philosophy that has guided the Democratic Party since FDR's New Deal -- that competent, caring, compassionate government is the instrument best suited to addressing America's social disorders -- is being fatally undermined.

The VA hospitals are supposed to represent the best in quality care for those we owe the most. They are America's example to the world of government-run health care and a single-payer system that liberals have championed for decades.

Does anyone still believe that universal health care modeled on the VA is what we want for America?

Looking around, America's public sector appears to be everywhere in crisis.

Before the VA scandal we had the rollout of Obamacare, the disastrous results of which were so unanticipated and adverse they could cost the Democratic Party control of the Senate in November.

Democrats point to Social Security and Medicare as the ideal of what a caring, compassionate and competent government can do.

But what has Big Government accomplished lately?

In the new century, we have fought our two longest wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are the results worth the lost blood and treasure?

Or are the results of our interventions the reasons why Americans want to stay out of Syria and Ukraine?

Perhaps the largest of all government programs is education.

Yet despite the trillions of dollars plunged into public education at the local, state and federal levels from the Great Society to No Child Left Behind to Race to the Top, U.S. test scores continue to plummet in international competition and the gap between black and Hispanic and Asian and white continues to persist.

To bring up test scores, we have seen the dumbing down of tests and rampant cheating by principals and teachers erasing and changing answers for students in school districts including D.C. and Atlanta.

Corrupt conduct by those charged with instructing America's children in the moral superiority of democratic government.

Is not the charter school movement a vote of no confidence in a school system that was once the pride of the nation?

The sub-prime mortgage scandal, which almost plunged us into a second Great Depression, was a product of Big Government.

And despite five trillion in federal deficits under Obama, and a Fed policy of pumping endless trillions into the banks, U.S. growth in the first quarter flatlined, and has been anemic for years.

The bankruptcy of Detroit, the downgrades of public debt in Illinois, Puerto Rico and New Jersey -- were they not all caused by the political class that runs state governments?

Yes, there are well-run VA hospitals, outstanding public schools, and state and local governments that are magnets for business. And government has accomplished goals in which all of us take pride.

NASA put our astronauts on the moon. After Pearl Harbor, Washington led America to victory in less than four years. But lately government's failures seem to outnumber its successes.

Republicans rightly view with alarm demographic trends showing their core constituencies shrinking and the Democrats' rising.

But Democrats should also take heed. For declining confidence in government's ability to solve America's problems, which is likely to be translated into Republican gains in Congress this year, represents a declining faith in the Democratic idea that government is the answer.

In the last century, communism was The God That Failed.

It should be a cause for concern that in the new century the god that appears to be failing is American democracy.

[Fido969]

Oh, gosh, what a ridiculous notion.

[brownsfan]

No, it’s another example of the weakness, and corrupt nature of humans.

[MNDude]

I believe Ben Franklin defined democracy as two wolves and a sheep taking a vote on what should be eaten for dinner.

[dfwgator]

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.

That’s why we are a Republic.

[Texas Eagle]

Is Democracy Another God that Failed?

Yes. Repeatedly.

How does that quote about the definition of insanity go?

[USNBandit]

We aren’t being failed by our type of government. We are being failed by the government we are dumb enough to elect. Constituencies that see a handout as the function of government. Democrats obviously crave being in power more than a strong country because they do everything they can to ensure their constituencies stay on the plantation. The only cross purpose they work towards is ensuring as many poor women get sbortions as possible.

[The Truth Will Make You Free]

we had the rollout of Obamacare, the disastrous results of which were so unanticipated and adverse

Lie. The disastrous adverse results were FULLY anticipated, both by the right and the far left.

[I want the USA back]

What failed is the millions of Americans who put their heads up their anal exit passageways and refused to see what’s going on and elected 0bama.

[Tupelo]

As usual, I can agree with Pat Buchanan about 85-90% of the time. However two sentences in the story set my mind, such as it is to work.
“In the new century, we have fought our two longest wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are the results worth the lost blood and treasure?”

I have spent most of my life disparaging FDR for among other things his running for (and winning) the Presidency four times. FDR died in 1944 and we have not won a war since.I am starting to wonder if maybe he knew that a new president from a different party would find a way out of WWll. Anyway out. Just as has happened every time since. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. No way of knowing, but the thought is interesting. At least to me.

[MNDude]

Ha! We both thought of the exact same quote!

[LearsFool]

The success or failure of democracy depends on the people. Tocqueville’s study of the American people revealed some necessary characteristics - which are strikingly lacking in American society today.

Democracy hasn’t failed. But holding it up as a god, and relying on it to save us, we ourselves have failed.

[alloysteel]

“Democracy” is one of those terms that changes meaning with the user, and depending on the circumstances in which it is applied.

What are called “democracies” are in many instances a sufficiently cowed majority who have found themselves doing the bidding of a largely self-appointed oligarchy, while a pretense of seeking the “popular support” is used as cover for really highly preferential treatment for the few. By that definition, the Islamic world is perhaps the epitome of “democracy”, except for the rather nasty reality of how dissent is handled. Usually resulting in death or slavery for the resisters or uncommitted. However, pretty much a “level playing field” for the favored few.

“Democracy” is coterminous with “equality”, and applied with similarly disastrous results.

Some animals are more equal than others.

[The Great RJ]

It isn't democracy that has failed is is just another failure of socialism that we are seeing. The democratic republic envisioned by our Founding Fathers where government especially at the federal level was limited and citizens were able to engage in free enterprise was wildly successful and made the US into the greatest nation the world has ever seen. We are seeing the end product of decades of erosion of the limited government our Founding Fathers created. Starting with President Wilson we have seen our liberties slowly being stolen by big government. In the Great Depression many on the left wanted to end capitalism all together and move to communism or at least socialism. In those desperate years FDR implemented massive government programs none of which ended the economic depression and many of which actually extended it. WW-II ended the great depression, but at a huge cost to the US economy. War industries boomed, unemployment was ended by drafting millions of men into the military, but at the cost of high taxes, massive debt and rationing on the home front. After WW-II ended the US was the lone super power, but was fatally hooked on Keynesian economics, government programs to solve every problem and wealth envy. There were a few bright spots during the Reagan years, but we again went back to the road to serfdom culminating with the election of Obama who vowed to fundamentally transform America into a socialist if not Marxist state. Now our economy is nearly wrecked, our God given rights of life. liberty and the pursuit of happiness have been taken from us and our Constitution and Bill of Rights is being torn asunder.

[polymuser]

We were a republic, strong and successful.
We the people became satiated, apathetic, uninvolved.
The Frankfurt School planted their cancer cells here.
The schools, unions, parties and media got infected.
It is now metastasized and killing America.
Only radical surgery may save America.
IMO.

[Olog-hai]

Is the title conflating democracy and republicanism again?

[nathanbedford]

Before we conservatives indulge in a bit of well-earned schadenfreude at the unmasking of the big statist fail, let us consider a few disquieting realities.

First, Nathan's Maxim: the remedy for failed socialism is seldom a free-market solution but invariably more socialism.

Thus, as we see the grand promises of the left disintegrating in healthcare, education, and the economy in general, we should understand that the left will not be abashed by its failures, rather its failures will cause the left only to redouble their efforts to impose more controls, more regulation, more socialism.

Second, there is a branch of American leftism, obviously headed by Barack Obama himself, which adheres to the Saul Alinsky – Cloward-Piven – Frankfurt School- theory for bringing us to utopia: crash the system. It is only naïve to believe that many who control the Democrat party today want anything other than economic, cultural, and political disintegration. We can pay attention to their words or we can watch their actions and their actions have no rational explanation other than to precipitate a radical and rapid "transformation" of America. Parallel actions in foreign affairs reinforced this conclusion. The determined purpose of flooding America with illegal immigrants has more to it then merely filling the polls with Democrat voters, it means to precipitate the breakdown of the system.

I do not allege that all Democrats or even all leftists entertain these dark motives, but when the commander-in-chief has a biography that speaks only of his communist credentials, one must draw the obvious conclusions for him and for those who adhere closely to him.

Schadenfreude is to be enjoyed but for the passing moment because the crisis is about to come. The Democrats have unleashed economic forces which they cannot control and are indifferent to but those consequences are inescapable and their reckoning, not just economic but cultural and political as well, cannot be forever evaded.

[DesScorp]

"Is democracy another god that failed?"

Yes, yes it is

[Zionist Conspirator]

Yep.

Next question?

[Zionist Conspirator]

Oh my . . . I just read the article title and didn't even look at the byline. I've just agreed with Pat Buchanan!

While "democracy" has failed, whatever Pat wants to replace it with will be just as bad. Only submitting to the Laws of G-d can save this country and this world.