Changing Demographics? More Like Enduring Ignorance
BY Arnold Ahlert
JewishWorldReview.com
By now, you've
heard from most of the chattering classes as to why
Democrats in general, and Barack Obama in
particular, did so well on election night. You've
heard about changing demographics, an opportune
storm, media malfeasance, etcetera, etcetera, ad
nauseam.
Let me make it
much simpler. On election night, for the umpteenth
time, I went to the local food mart, and gave the
high school kid working the register a five dollar
bill for something that cost $2.32. She punched it
into the computer, after which I gave her the
thirty-two cents. By now, most of you know where
this is going: the dazed look, alternating between
the change and me, as if I'd handed her the Dead Sea
Scrolls and demanded a translation on the spot. Of
course if I'd used that analogy to make light of the
moment, it wouldn't have mattered: these kids aren't
just mathematically illiterate, they wouldn't know
what the Dead Sea Scrolls are either--unless it was
the name of a new app for their I-phones.
On the way
home, I had the radio on. Without a trace of
embarrassment or irony in his voice, the newscaster
spoke about a mock vote taken at the local high
school. "Barack Obama won in a landslide," he
gushed. After two generations of leftist
indoctrination by unionized educators, whose quid
pro quo relationship with the Democrat party is
written in stone, I don't doubt it for a minute. Nor
was I particularly shocked earlier this year when I
wrote about three kids in their late teens and early
twenties, who couldn't place the date of the Civil
War within the 50-year spread I gave them to do so.
Literacy? If it can't be reduced to 140 characters
for Twitter's sake, it no longer matters.
None of this is
particularly new. In fact, when I taught reading and
study skills in NYC schools thirty years ago, it was
exactly the same. Those "kids" are now in their 40s.
The only thing that semi-shocked me back then was
the fact that most of them were no longer ashamed of
being ignorant. In fact, many of them were proud of
their cluelessness. Now, most of them barely know
what shame is, other than having someone say
something bad about them on FaceBook. And pride is
all about owning the latest gadget, replacing the
gadget that replaced the gadget before that.
There's your
so-called demographic. We've become a nation with a
majority of weak-thinkers, allied with those more
than willing to do their thinking for them, as long
as they get "free stuff" in return. What is the
minority offering as an alternative? Freedom.
Unfortunately,
freedom is hard. For one thing, it requires critical
thinking skills. For another, it requires effort.
Tyranny is easy. Just do whatever someone tells you
to do, whether it's a bureaucrat--or a cash
register. What was this election really all about?
We are now certain that it is impossible to change
the trajectory of nation comprised of millions of
people who can't make change.
As a result, I
have a suggestion for the Republicans, one they
won't hear from anyone else: give Barry and Company
everything they want, without an iota of resistance.
Let 'em raise taxes and the debt ceiling, gut the
military, and run up trillions of dollars of
additional deficits and debt. Then stand back, and
let an utterly corrupt media chronicle the
demise--without being able to pin an ounce of
the ensuing socialist catastrophe on an
"obstructionist" GOP.
Harry Reid
wants to end the filibuster? Tell him it won't be
necessary. For the next four years, Republicans will
do what a certain Senator from Illinois made a
career of doing: they will simply vote "present" on
every bill put before them in both houses of
Congress. In effect, give Democrats they same
unassailable majority they had in 2008--the same one
that led directly to the passage of ObamaCare.
Radical?
Compared to what? Watching a president get
re-elected, despite four major scandals, the worst
recovery on record, and the explosion of
entitlements--all of which was blamed on the
aforementioned Republican obstructionism? Being
blamed for everything that will go wrong from
2012 to 2016, completely irrespective of reality or
the truth?
It's time to
get real: the only thing Republicans can do is delaythe
inevitable. Why bother? The sooner progressives and
the media bring America to its knees, the sooner the
people who know better can put the nation back on
its feet.
I know what
you're thinking. What about the hell we'll have to
go through between now and then? A couple of
answers. First, it's time for the voting majority to
get exactly what they voted for--in spades. Second,
and this applies not just to America, but to every
socialist country that has also run out of other
people's money to spend: better an out and out
meltdown and genuine recovery after two or
three years, than the ongoing twilight of
semi-misery we're currently enduring. Misery that
could last a decade more--or longer.
Any attempt to
meet Democrats "half-way" is a fool's errand. There
is no split-the-difference, get along to go along,
compromise that can be reached between tyranny and
freedom. With respect to the rule of law and the
Constitution, you're either in or you're out.A
nation is either solvent or bankrupt. It is either
exceptional or ordinary. The American majority voted
for tyranny, bankruptcy and mediocrity.
Give the people
what they want--until they can't stand it anymore.