In a Democracy, The People Get The Government They Deserve

The post title is one my favorite all time quotes. It is the perfectly pithy expression of my own thoughts and feelings about the non-stop clown parade the American people seem content to send to the nation’s capital every election cycle. This simple ten word sentence is also positively dripping with sarcasm, which any reader of this blog will know would have made it an instant favorite of mine from the moment I bumped into it.

My first exposure to the quotation remains lost in the swirling mists of my personal memory. Whatever it was, the moment of exposure surely connected the quote to Alexis de Tocqueville – prominent 19th Century French politician and political scientist – because until today I was certain he was its’ author.

But today is the day I began researching the facts around fleshing out the general idea for this post. While I browsed the Intertubes for information on deTocqueville, I certainly did confirm, as expected, he was the author of the great work of political and social science that nailed a profound examination of the American character – Democracy In America (1835).

However, his connection to my beloved quote was severed by this:

The statement is often quoted as "In a democracy, people get the government they deserve," and often attributed to Alexis de Toqueville ... but it's hard to verify where he said it, and even whether he really did.
…
But I doubt that de Toqueville said it, simply because it doesn't sound like him. The tone of the remark is sarcastic or cynical, and de Toqueville's writings weren't like that. It wasn't his style.

Ack! (Bill the Cat) How could I have gone on for so long so mistaken? What failure of gub’ment education policy has allowed me to carry this ignominious badge of ignorance with me all my life! OK, I’m over it now.

==

I kind of remember asking in an earlier post something like “what the hell are these people thinking?” This question was re-constituted in my brain, courtesy of two recent polls local radio man Chris Plante discussed over the AM wavelength this past Thursday and Friday morning.

In the Thursday morning poll, a majority of Americans expressed, incredibly, the belief that deposed President George Walker Bush is more to blame for today’s economy than sitting President Barack Hussein Obama.

In the Friday Morning poll, at least half the country expresses the belief, incredibly, Martin Luther King’s dream of racial equality remains unrealized. Most interestingly, white Americans are slightly more pessimistic than black Americans on this question.

What the hell are these people thinking?

Well, upon long and careful consideration of this existential question – I, LibertyAtStake, have come up with a two part answer. Part 1 = The Power of Propaganda. Part 2 = White Guilt.

==

The Power of Propaganda

There is by now a very strong case to be made for a Leftist bias in today’s mainstream media (MSM). The case for MSM bias has been articulately made on this blog, if I don’t say so myself. I won’t belabor the point of this case. I will simply stipulate what should by now be obvious to the most casual observer – the MSM is actively working on behalf of the Progressive Left.

The agenda of the Progressive Left is, at rock bottom, an agenda of identity politics. The furtherance of this agenda involves the continuous stoking of divisions between wealth, gender, and race classes – with certain of those designated victim and the certain others designated oppressor.

The political party owned and operated by the Progressive Left is the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party’s well-heeled propaganda organ is the corrupt and biased MSM. Any American that is only getting his or her information from the corrupt and biased MSM has been barraged with a steady one-sided drum beat pounding home the Leftist agenda. The messaging for this agenda includes, among other things, the messages “George Bush evil” and “Blacks victim class.”

==

White Guilt

I’ve spent less time on this blog examining the effects of “white guilt” on today’s republic. I am not susceptible to its deleterious effects, as I was born into a low socio-economic status (as measured by the class warriors of the Left) and spent time as a toddler in one of LBJ’s housing projects. I clearly remember how George Wallace’s snarky label “limousine liberals” resonated with my parents, friends, and neighbors shortly after the family escaped said projects.

In the subsequent decades, however, I have become something of a bemused observer of privileged liberal whites seemingly willingly to turn off their cognitive functions when confronted by questions of race.

Take, for example, the legions of privileged white voters who were willing to suspend disbelief on a (non) record of (non)accomplishment coupled with a fully demonstrable record of radical associations for this numb nuts in 2008.

I tell the “victims” (full sarcasm entirely meant) of 2008’s outbreak of “white guilt” the only cure is affixing this bumper sticker to your Prius or Smart Car immediately.

Update 1/27/12

LAS has noticed a pattern of visits directly to this post, by Intertubes users searching on phrases closely approximating the post title. Therefore, since this post is apparently destined for Intertubes fame, I made a quick editorial pass to correct a couple of grammatical errors. My Grandmother apparently told my father a lot to wear clean underwear every day because you never know when you'll be in an accident and have to be picked up by an ambulance. Basically, I'm applying that advice toward cleaning up this post before it takes off into true Intertubes fame and fortune. And since I pride myself on remaining the Most Transparent Blog In History, the original errors remain with strikethrough notation.