Tish Durkin is On Frickin' Fire

She's not a conservative but not quite a liberal either, and she's a little feisty. I've been putting off reading this article all day, and now I regret doing so:

Democrats of Manhattan, rise and shine! It’s been over a week now. The American people have spoken, and what they said was: They don’t want you. The vote is in, the map is more red than blue, that smirking jerk you love to hate is back for four more years. So now what?

Clearly, your most frequently stated option is not a realistic possibility. If you were really going to kill yourself in the event that President George W. Bush got re-elected, you would have done so by now. This leaves you, like every other loser, with two things: a bitter taste in your mouth, and a choice. You can sit around and keep telling each other how stupid and scary the winners are. Or you can put down the hemlock and the Häagen-Dazs, splash some cold water on your face, look in the mirror and tell yourself some awful truths.

Read your lips:

Bush is not an idiot. Kofi Annan is not an oracle. Michael Moore is not Everyman. Women are not ovaries with feet. And to be an American is not an embarrassment.

Great start, huh? She actually then says she voted for Kerry, but at least she hasn't got her head completely up her ass about the state of things:

Curiously, then, it is not the party I voted against that is driving me nuts right now. It is the party I voted for. It’s the same feeling that I got about the Democrats after 2000: I agree with them, but I can’t stand them, in the exact same way I can’t stand anyone who would rather whine than shine.

I think there's a lot in truth in this. Truth be told, I'm more of a Republican than a conservative. Oh, I'm conservative on several issues, but actually I'm sorta moderate on several. I'm the worst sort of political enthusiast -- driven not by true ideology, but by pure partisanship.

But it's not just pure partisanship; that's the thing. Part of what makes me root so passionately against the Democrats every election cycle is that they annoy me. Not necessarily their policies, although I do disagree with them more than I agree with them.

It's just that they're, you know, whiny solipsistic sanctimonious pricks with an outsized sense of entitlement. Or does that put it too subtly?

It's often been said that liberals look for heretics while conservatives look for converts. That's not completely true, of course; I see a certain amount of heresy-hunting on the right, and it does piss me off.

But it is true to some extent. Liberals have to stop acting as if they are entitled to rule due to their exalted status as God's Special Creatures, and begin behaving as if (and this the reality, of course) they had to sell their programs and earn the votes of the public.

Name-calling and whining -- calling the the majority of America morons -- every time you lose an election is doubly counterproductive. First, of course, you're alienating 51% of the public, which is not wise.

But it's worse than that. It's a sign of a fundamental misperception of the nature of reality, and liberals' place in it. Liberals are not ordained to rule by divine providence. When they are not elected, it is not some sort of betrayal. We don't owe liberals anything.

Liberal can be elected -- witness Bill Clinton -- but they have to begin behaving as if they understand that it is the public's right to vote for them, or vote against them, as they choose and as they think wisest. And they can start by jacking up the suasion and sense and dampening down the sanctimony and self-regard.

Update: Intesting observations on Democrats and the "religion problem" over at Polar Opposite Politics. One guy there seems to be a former (current?) reader, the other guy some kind of evil-goateed-Sulu type nefarious character. Kind of like Crossfire, except, you know, with a maniacally laughing Sulu.

At any rate, here's a bit:

My impression is that the mass media and the advance of technology have accelerated and exacerbated cultural issues in this country. In the big cities, most people know gay folks, are friends with gay folks. When you have a personal connection to someone gay, you are less likely to want to infringe their rights. And that viewpoint, taken for granted in Hollywood, is clearly well-represented in our popular culture.

That popular culture is then broadcast into homes all across the world, including homes in middle America. Maybe it persuades some of them that perhaps homosexuality isn't all that "bad." But equally if not more likely, maybe it creates more resentment among folks who don't like Hollywood cramming its values down their throats.

That's from First Assassin Sulu, by the way.

Ted Rall Ain't Helpin' Either Update: I can't be bothered to read this humanoid vermin, but I don't have to, because Secure Liberty has.

Whatta hump. The left's big loudmouthed champions are a nickle-and-dime home-movie-making pixie (well, a pixie weighing three bills and change) and a... cartoonist.

Nothing against cartoonists in general, mind you.