Written by: Goemagog

There has been a lot of talk about why the Democrats have shed their 'moderates'. They haven't. They never had any. Neither have the Republicans. A 'moderate' from either party is someone who happens to agree with the other party on whatever issue is at hand. The issue changes, they become an extremist partisan.

The reason this has become the topic of discussion is not because they are lacking for a 'moderate' image. It's because they've become un-American. I don't mean that they're pushing some international socialist agenda, even though they are. I mean that the agenda the Democratic Party is pushing is purely European.

No European government permits a free press. All European media outlets are afraid to criticize their own governments, even as most American media outlets can't stop criticizing Bush. But even CNN is afraid to speak ill of other governments. Any discussion of media freedoms and usage as a defacto propaganda ministry will inevitably come to blaming Fox News for everything Americans think about the rest of the world. That the rest of the world, led by Europe, has become a lousy place to visit and even worse place to live is usually not discussed.

It's not that there is a great conspiracy amongst Democrats to get out of touch with American voters, it's that there used to be, but not amongst Democrats. Most of the leftist Democratic ideas come from the soviet sponsored socialist movements of the 50's and 60's aimed at taking over political structures without widespread public support. Those have collapsed, but their legacy lives on in European/American relations due to a misunderanding.

In Europe, politics are divided mostly into 'left' and 'right'. Both are socialists, the left being international socialists (formerly subserviant to Moscow, but now raving about the 'promise' of the United Nations) who think anyone else is an evil capitalist conspiring against them, and the right being national socialists, who think all dissenters are evil foreign capitalists conspiring against them. Cromwell is hailed as a hero for being more tyrannical than the king he executed. The king may have been bad, but the power of the king was not. Elections are a choice between a dictator, a tyrant, and a despot.

In America, politics are also divided into 'left' and 'right'. Leftists (such as Democrats) incorporate most of those who would fit into a European political party. They are a mix of socialists strains, from mild to extreme, from pacifistic to the Khmer Rouge wannabe's of the Green Party. The American right is primarily federalistic, i.e. that government should be tiered so that no one government level, branch, or agency can have absolute power. This also covers a wide variety of specific ideologies, groups, and subgroups. There is no European comparison to this, the groups that could fit into this are so small as to be easily missed.

The misunderstanding comes whenever an American describes another American as being on the political right. To a European, that means he's a nazi. Now that the Democrats are taking all of their cues from Europe, it means the same to them. Most American media outlets also take their cues from Europe, so they see things as the Democratic Party does. The problem is that most of the American public doesn't have coffee on the sidewalk in Paris, doesn't name-drop at the Hague, and doesn't read British newspapers. Few Americans do, and almost all of them are in the American media or the Democratic Party.

Emulating Europeans may win votes from Europeans, but they can't vote in our elections. It's a good thing too, because otherwise we might up emulating Germany's 11.4% unemployment rate, London's skyrocketing crime rate, or the corruption so dominant in the rest of the world. We're the richest, most prosperous country that has ever been by not emulating Europe. We've done things differently and usually better than they have. If the Democrats want a future in American politics, they need to stop using Europe as a reference point and base their policies entirely on what works here. Their foreign policy should be based on what we need in the way of resources and encouraging other countries to be more like us. Free, prosperous, and not afraid to bitch that our right-wing president has spent so much public money on 'art'.

Goe, against the National Endowment because the only good artist is a starving artist.