Revolt against Arrogance

On the Scott Brown victory and the ability of power to corrupt:

Democrats in the present instance were on the receiving end of the public's anger and exasperation due to their stubborn refusal to hear other people's viewpoints about health care reform or to acknowledge that terrorists and suicide bombers qualify for the barest minimum of constitutional sympathy. Wise Republicans, should the GOP soon snatch back the power it lost in 2006 and 2008, will warn party members against the same kind of tone-deafness. The people won't take it. Maybe you think they should. Well, they won't. Don't try it.

Democracy has its obvious imperfections, but if you live under one, you'd better buy into the idea -- as Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Obama himself clearly haven't. The Democrats' view of democracy is monarchical. Shut up! They happily explain: here's what we're doing. . . .

I've a theory that American politicians aren't worse, intrinsically, than they used to be; they're vastly more powerful -- that's the point surely. They're more powerful because government itself is more powerful, not to mention more bloated, more self-centered, more everything except mindful of mere voters. Emphasis mine.

Read the whole thing.

Come to think of it, Scott Brown put the matter with great precision in his now-famous answer to David Gergen's question about responsibility for the maintenance of "Ted Kennedy's seat." Not Kennedy's seat, "the people's seat," Brown replied in setting Gergen straight.

Let Brown keep up that style of talk, that kind of thinking, and Massachusetts in two years could renew his lease on the seat. . . .

VDH:

Elite liberals are not good class warriors. Factor in multi-millionaire Nancy Pelosi’s government mega-jet or Barack Obama’s various overseas junkets or the big Wall Street money that went into Obama’s near billion-dollar campaign coffers, and it is hard to take seriously Obama’s constant war against “them.” The voters have figured out that their president likes the elite plutocracy and the lower middle classes, but not so much the wannabe rich who aspire to cross his hated $250,000 income threshold — at which point suddenly they become unpatriotic, unwilling to pay their fair shares, and reluctant to spread the wealth around.

It is not particularly smart to constantly demonize the entrepreneurial classes, promise to raise income, payroll, health-care, and inheritance taxes on them, and expand government regulations — and then wonder why they are not creating more jobs.

Arrogance comes at the State level, too. Taxes are for the little people.