Laugh at Landrieu, but Start Rowing to Shore

Amusing news comes from the part of the country where I grew up:

But then that's the uphill battle she must fight, [Mary] Landrieu [D-LA] sighed, because in the South blacks and women have had it hard. She declined to explain how she has been elected three times as a senator by such a collection of unwashed knuckle draggers.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., appropriately called her out.

"Senator Landrieu's comments are remarkably divisive," Jindal tweeted. "She appears to be living in a different century."

One constant in this story is the role of the Democrats, at least in the South, as reactionaries. When race really could keep certain candidates out of office for cultural and legal reasons, it was the southern Democrats who fought the hardest to preserve Jim Crow. Now, when the kind of policies championed by Saint FDR are fast-tracking us to ruin, it is the Democrats who most aggressively want to expand them at all costs. It is most fitting that a man who almost certainly couldn't have been elected only a generation ago is calling Senator Landrieu out.

Republicans are laughing heartily at this, but they should stop laughing for a moment and reflect. Too often, I hear from conservatives that some evil of our metastatic government, like the income tax, or regulation of everything, or public education is "too big" to get rid of. Sometimes, this is merely self-serving nonsense by insincere advocates of "small government" who merely want to use the state for their own (often theocratic) ends. But often, this is lamentation on the part of those who really are interested in proper government, focused entirely on protection of individual rights. I wonder how many of these same people would have looked at, say, slavery in the 1850's, or Jim Crow in the 1950's and said the same thing. This is an understandable, but mistaken view.

Laughing due to a success is fine, but understanding it and striving to build on it is far better. This particular election will, at best, serve as a stay of execution unless advocates of limited government start working today on achieving limited government. Not just talking about it as if it were a pipe dream, and not just trying to stymie or slow the growth of improper government.

Advocates of limited government should vote for the GOP tomorrow, but hold their feet to the fire from then on.

-- CAV