AYN CLOUTER

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Rename The Democrats (Oct. 29, 2003)

Incoming California Governor Schwarzenegger has a great opportunity to terminate a true enemy of all Americans. Using the same state law that Nike was sued under for its allegedly misleading ads, he can sue the Democratic Party for its phony claim to stand for democracy. As they prove each day, with filibusters, quorum-breaking walkouts, and fights against recalls, the Democrats are really only committed to opposing the rights of political majorities. For the sake of truth in advertising, they must be required to change their name. Naturally, I have several helpful suggestions for a new label.

That California law, like a fill-in-the-blank wanted poster, actually allows any resident to sue for unfair trade practices, but I know a lot more attention would be given to a suit filed by America's new political action hero. The most famous use of the law was to sue Nike for "lying about the treatment of workers at overseas factories run by its contractors." The state supreme court, no doubt intimidated by liberal shouts that Nike was claiming a "right to lie" in its ads, ruled that the suit could proceed.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ducked its clear moral responsibility to exempt Madison Avenue from this kind of arbitrary truth testing, Nike settled and paid over a million dollars. Naturally, this led to denunciations of Nike for appeasement by true believers in the moral justness of capitalism. I can't imagine anything more fitting than to turn those liberal judges' ruling against them by using it against their own fraudulent party.

Democracy means "a form of government in which political power resides in all the people". To me that means that the majority gets to decide issues, either directly or through their elected representatives. How has the Democratic Party been opposing this principle? To me, their most obvious method is the filibuster.

Right now 41 Democratic U.S. Senators, a percentage even smaller than Bill Clinton's plurality in his first three-way race, are blocking our elected President from appointing several judges to the U.S. appeals courts. Let me assure you these are all good sound pro-business anti-choice strict constructionists like Charles Pickering of Mississippi, William Pryor of Alabama, Priscilla Owen of Texas, and even an African-American, Janice Rogers Brown of California. Republican leader Bill Frist has said he will keep pushing these, forcing liberals to filibuster until the Senate's patience is exhausted and it votes to change the rules -- or at least to stir up the fire-eaters of the Republican base to help reelect Bush in 2004.

Democrats claim they have just been driven to this desperate measure because of how awful George Bush's nominees are. I say that is nonsense. The filibuster is and always has been a favorite Democratic tool. Shall I tell you who holds the world's record for an individual filibuster in any national legislative body? A Democrat, naturally, who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in 1957.

That was, of course, Strom Thurmond. Don't tell me he was a Republican. He was still a Democrat when he set the record, and stayed one until after Barry Goldwater carried South Carolina in 1964. Furthermore, Thurmond never tried to break his record after switching parties -- Republicans have more respect for majority rule. We all know how they showed this in Florida in 2000, when they made sure soldiers overseas could get their ballots counted, even if they hadn't been mailed by the arbitrary deadline of election day.

Want me to give you more proof? The previous record was set by Wayne Morse of Oregon in 1953. Yes, he had been elected to the U.S. Senate in 1944 as a Republican, but he made his record filibuster only after he had already left the GOP over the nomination of Richard Nixon as Vice-President. Predictably, he then was reelected as a Democrat.

If you want me to go way back, the previous record was by "progressive" Robert M. LaFollette in 1908, charging that a bill was intended to enrich bankers. Although a RINO ("Republican in name only") of his day, he further showed his true anti-business and anti-GOP colors by his 1912 support for Democrat Woodrow Wilson (who gave us the income tax), then by running for President himself as a third-party candidate in 1924. Real Republicans just don't filibuster.

But those are all in Congress. Let me tell you who holds the record for the longest filibuster at any level -- a Democrat from Texas, Mike McKool, who spoke in the state senate for an incredible 42 hours and 33 minutes for one more liberal cause, funding for mental health and retardation. He just edged out a previous mark from 1957 of 36 hours by two other Texas Democratic state senators. During that marathon one of them, Henry B. Gonzalez, set the state legislative mark for a single continuous talk, 22 hours and 2 minutes. They were praised by liberals for opposing a bill to let segregationist parents withdraw their children from school -- an early example of Democrats opposing school choice.

La Rochefoucauld said "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue." At least Lenin's communists had the hypocrisy to claim to be the majority by calling themselves "bolsheviks" (Russian for "majority"), and their enemies, who actually had the larger numbers, "mensheviks" (meaning "minority"). The shameless Democrats now try to stand virtue on its head by proudly proclaiming to us that the minority is more important than the majority. This is typical liberal elitism that thinks anything the broad populace likes must be terrible.

So what should the un-Democratic Party's name be changed to? Most obvious is the name we use for anyone who winds up at the minority end of an election or a vote in Congress -- Losers!! This doesn't equal the usual pretentious sound of a party name, so we should give them some other choices. Many are available.

Democrats have often been denounced as Mobocrats. Technically the term for this should be Ochlocrats or Pollarchists, but the whole point I've been making is that they don't support the will of the many, even in the form of a mob. Some terms like Kakistocrats (for government by the worst), Ptochocrats (government by the poor), or Thalassocrats (defined in one dictionary as "an empire at sea", which describes their policies), may be true but would be rejected as willful insults. Though literal believers in Oligarchy (rule by the few), Pedantocracy (rule by pedants), Endarchy (centralized government), Technocracy (rule by technocrats), and even Statocracy (rule by the state), the liberals may feel that all of those terms would give their game away.

Those fond of giving driver's licenses and later amnesties to illegal immigrants might like Heterarchic (government of an alien), which should also get the support of the crowd that echoed "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos." We might just have to make up a word. Elitocrats (rule by the elite) again seems too revealing. Both Contumacrats (rule by the rebellious) and Minorocrats (rule by minority) are very accurate but don't seem like names for possible winners. Much as I like Subcaninocrats (rule by underdogs) it has the same problem. Perhaps best would be a name describing their method of governing: Oratoricrats (rule by speechmakers). No doubt you can think of several more. There is plenty of time, since the Nike suit wasn't settled for five years after it was filed. If you have a better suggestion, sent it to me and I'll post it here. We can all look forward to a day when we will never have to hear about Democrats again.

Ayn--

Your writing continues just to be so... HOT! I cannot believe you are still single!

Anyway-- I liked your idea of the Democrats as "Loser-crats". But that's not enough. As the party of the cultural elite, willing to use class warfare to strike at the Republicans popular economic and tax agenda, I suggest the "Aristocrats"; I like the "Obstructi-crats" too. But most especially, after the Mid-term elections where the feckless Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt couldn't put together any agenda of any kind, my personal favorite is the "Nothing-Crats". Like Seinfeld, a party about nothing.

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