It probably is not widely known among the general public that two icons of the Democratic Party, Hubert Humphrey and
John F. Kennedy were members of the NRA. Many don’t know that Eleanor Roosevelt
often carried a gun for personal protection. But today, when a politician proposes the latest liberty infringing law in a State House, or U.S. Congress, it seems one doesn’t even have to look to know the party affiliation of that politician. Almost invariably it is the party that begins with the letter D.. But, why is that? What turned a party that was pretty much for the right of the citizens to bear arms to one that vociferously opposes it?
As with much of the modern Democratic Party, I think much of this goes back to 1972. That was the year that the radical Left took over the party. Before, the party styled itself as the party of the working man and its members felt that the party’s purpose was to help to give the working man an even break.
Before ’72, the so-called Red States were solidly Democratic. Texas had a Democratic governor and was a solid Democratic state and the Democratic Party had a lock on the South. The fathers of today’s NASCAR watching, Bush voting, Southern boys were most likely Democrats.
After ’72, that all changed and in election after election, the Democratic Party has been pushed out of the South and the Mountain West and is faced with extinction in these areas. After ‘72, the Democrats became the party of the urban elite who looks at the working man as a means to an end in public and with scorn in private.
The Democrats went from leaders like Harry Truman and Zell Miller to ones like Al Gore, John Kerry and Tom Daschle. Real men who worked their way from humble beginnings were replaced by effete Alan Alda types who showed their feelings and grew up with silver spoons in the lap of luxury.
This new elite really had no use for guns, except for the John Kerry type ultra elite who sported $10,000 shotguns and who learned to hunt in the British style by trained staff on their private islands. But in the hands of the working man, no. How could they really like or trust the common man, when he works with his hands and drinks non imported beer and is just so gauche. The idea of guns available and in the hands of common men offends the elite’s well-honed sensibilities.
They are seeking to create the perfect society. They are working so hard for it, a society of peace and love. If there are people who believe they need to carry guns for personal protection, then that puts the lie to everything they think they have accomplished or want to accomplish.
Part of their attitude is that they no longer believe in good and evil. Remember how they criticized President Bush because he has framed the War on Terror as good verses evil. They really don’t believe there are bad people out there who would kill you for the change in your pocket. For the liberal elites, people who do evil acts are just misunderstood or have been treated badly by the system. Instead of punishing the people who do bad, what needs to be done is they want to change the system that causes evildoers to act bad in the first place. Notice that there is no room for personal responsibility in this philosophy. If you do something wrong, there must be some external reason for your actions.
Many people take this to heart. There was a recent case from New York City where a young woman, who was being held at gunpoint, told the gunman: “What are you going to do, Shoot me?” He did. Those of us who know there is evil in the world would have never have challenged a robber like this. We know that he has no value for human life, and would probably have no problem with cold-blooded murder. Why force the issue by challenging him? But this poor women was gulled into the Utopian fantasy that there is no such thing as good and evil. She might have thought, Why would he shoot me when I am not a threat to him? All he probably needs is some counseling to stop this kind of anti-social behavior.
Notice also how, after having dispensed with good and evil, they then project those attributes onto inanimate object like guns. They seem to believe that guns actually cause people, who as we have seen no longer have any responsibility for their actions, to act violently. To them, it is the availability of guns that cause crime, not the actual criminals. So we get repeated calls for more gun control and outright bans and when these fail, they will come up with some other external factor, because no one is responsible for their actions.
This is a child’s philosophy. Writ large, it is the child’s plea of “the Devil Made Me Do It,” except in this case it is society, the gun, (Insert Other External Factor) that made me do it. This is what you get when you no longer believe that there are bad people in the world. This philosophy rules the roost in the Democratic Party and in our big cities and in most other Western countries.
The belief stems from a desire to hide ones head in the sand and to see things as one would wish them to be not as they are. It is also very, very appealing. Many people wish they could absolve themselves of responsibilities and blame someone else for their problems. For this reason, it will be hard, but not impossible, to combat this way of thinking.
