Peggy Noonan: Dem Problems

Opinion Journal ^ | 03/03/03 | Peggy Noonan

[Pokey78]

Recently Andrew Cuomo asked me to contribute to a book of essays on the future of the Democratic Party. I thought I would send it to Andrew through OpinionJournal.com. That way he will be able to see your responses pro and con and perhaps include a few of them in the book, too.

[OldPossum]

As usual, and as the previous posters have generally agreed, Peggy Noonan provides the insightful commentary for which she is famed. Ms. Noonan describes the Democratic Party precisely for what it has become.

The line I liked the best was: This is the Democratic paradox: You want so much to run America and yet you seem not so fond of Americans. This will be the cause for the party's ultimate downfall.

The only flaw is her support of gun registration. Surely she must know that in every instance of gun registration, sooner or later, gun confiscation follows.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

you have got to know that no political party primarily funded, supported and led by fierce pro-abortionists, by people whose great interest in life is seeing to it that the right to kill infants is retained, can long endure. Nothing can long stand on a foundation like that. Nothing.

FABULOUS article.

Peggy Noonanwill deliver the 20th Annual Frank L. Marcon Lecture, Tues. April 22, 2003, at 7:30 p.m., in the Billera Sport and Fitness Center at DeSales University, outside of Allentown, PA. The lecture is free and open to the public but tickets are required. Call (610) 282-4604 for tickets. Immediately following the lecture, Noonan will sign copies of her books for those interested.

http://www.desales.edu/servlet/RetrievePage?site=Desalesu&page=home

[FairWitness]

As long as they're law abiding, and responsible enough to respect the damage guns can do, conservatives completely support their right to have arms. (Sure they should be registered, but registration should exist to allow the law abiding to have guns, and not be twisted into a way to keep guns out of everyone's hands.)

A jarring note in an otherwise great essay. I like Peggy so much that I will give her the benefit of the doubt, that she was really trying to say something like: 'Gun registration would be a great idea if it weren't for unchangeable human nature, which includes the inevitable drive of politicians to dominate and control.'

[harpseal]

Regarding the right ro keep and bear arms I question Peggy when she talks of registration being a means for people to have arms. When someone can show me a case of where registration has not been used for eventual confiscation or further limiting of the right to keep and bear arms I may revise my view of it. On second thought no given the history of registration any registration should be opposed.

[Consort]

One of the biggest crimes of the Democrat Party was the politicization and polarization of important matters like environmental issues, civil rights/social issues, patriotism, etc. They made these and other issues a "we-vs-them" matter rather than working together to solve common problems.

[Phaedrus]

Big Home Run Bump ... She hasn't written one like this in a while (that I'm aware). Yes, a little squishy on gun registration but otherwise superb -- deep, insightful, courageous. She loves the idea that is America. So do I. And so, I think, do we all here on FR.

[Search4Truth]

Too late. They've already made a pact with the devil.

[Teacher317]

How often do people lvea the GOP to go to the Democrat Party? How many become successful in the party? None that I can think of...

[Teacher317]

How often do people leave the GOP to go to the Democrat Party? How many become successful in the party? None that I can think of...

[arasina]

I'd love to be added to your Peggy Noonan ping list!

Peggy Noonan once again tells the truth in such a wonderful way. The thing is that Andrew Cuomo already knows everything she says is true but he continues to act according to The Clinton Party Rulebook (i.e., dropping out of the New York Mayoral race in 2002). The other Democrats know what she says is true as well, but they continue to follow that same book (i.e., Daschle's behavior in the Estrada judicial nomination; all the Dem presidential candidates on stage proclaiming their pro-abortion stance).

What can they be thinking? Do they think if they perpetuate the power of the Clintons that they'll have a big spot in the limelight? Tommy D., if you allow Hillary to be your president (I will personally secede if that ever comes to pass) all you'll be her is court jester and you won't be allowed to look in her eyes if you pass her in the hall.

[Potemkin_village_idiot]

You may mean to be helpful in the abstract, but you are not helpful in the particular.

There's the "tag" line you've been looking for.

[grumple]

The Democratic Party of Destruction: Peggy articulates why they are eating their own. When a Democrat dissents and moves on from the party facade, they will circle them like vultures, steal their cigarettes, kill their babies and destroy their careers...all the while denying how destructive they can be. These people are guided by nothing more than pure unadulterated hate...

Peggy nails them, and exposes them for what they truly are. They live in constant denial of that which they know is right deep down inside but will do wrong for the sake of remaining a loyal Democrat for fear of being destroyed. Loyalty to a machine such as that is not loyalty...it's stupidity and a wasted life existence...

[HighRoadToChina]

BUMP!

[HamiltonJay]

Vietnam changed everything of course, and even though this is an old story I'll touch on it. Your party's problem was not that it opposed the war--that was one honorable position among many. The mistake the Democrats made was to allow their antiwar movement to become infused with bitterness and hostility, with a spirit of destructiveness. By the end the animating spirit of the movement looked something like this: We do not love this place; we prefer leaders unsullied by the grubby demands of electoral politics; we are drawn to the ideological purity of Ho, Fidel, Mao. And by the way we're taking over: Oppose our vision and we'll take care of you by revolutionary means.

I am so sick of the Vietname opposition being moral, it was not moral, it was TREASON. The KGB were the backers of the anti-war movement. Had we been allowed to fight truly fight that war, China would not be on the verge of being a superpower and the break of USSR would have happened even faster and earlier. Communists funded, back, supported and directed the Anti-War movement sure the rank and file may have been idiotic kids looking for easy sex and drugs, but the reality is the organizors and funding was all communist. That's reality. Give up on this pipe dream BS that opposition to Vietnam was moral... it was immoral. It lead to what should have been a decisive victory into a senseless meatgrinder.... there was no moral high ground fo the 60s pothead hippies.. just like todays anti-war nonsense. They did nothing but lengthen the war, increase the death count and betray their country.

[Logan455]

Please add me to your Peggy Noonan ping list. Thanks!

[xzins]

This article is totally ruined by the following. Noonan speaking of guns: As long as they're law abiding, and responsible enough to respect the damage guns can do, conservatives completely support their right to have arms. (Sure they should be registered, but registration should exist to allow the law abiding to have guns, and not be twisted into a way to keep guns out of everyone's hands.)

I wonder if she had to register this article she wrote. After all "free press" is in the 1st Amendment.

If she doesn't believe that, then why believe in registering a citizen rightfully exercising 2nd Amendment rights.

I stopped reading at this point when this gun propaganda in disguise came in.

[tubebender]

Bookmarking a "Keeper"...Snobs, I have always viewed the invironmentalist as elitist snobs who look down on the industrious.

[eureka!]

Noonan bump...

[Forgiven_Sinner]

There's a couple countervailing demographic trends that hurt the Democrats:

1. America is aging. The older people get, the more conservative they get.
2. The people who are reproducing are conservative. Religious people have a higher birthrate that unreligious people.

So, the republicans have a coalition of the religious (and it can get larger as the conservative Jews and Catholics move from their traditional Democratic base), families, and elderly.

[BobFromNJ]

Please add me to your Peggy Noonan ping list! Great article and I can relate to --being a former Democrat who woke up about 20 years ago.