The Democratic Party has perfected the victim's response. With painful regularity, the Democrats will be outmaneuvered, smeared, and generally worked over by BushCO and the Republicans. After it's all over they will whine about how the facts and the law were on their side, but they just couldn't stop the Republican juggernaut. If the media had done their job, if the FBI wasn't corrupt, if, if, if. It doesn't matter if Democrats control the House and the Senate. It doesn't matter if we have the Presidency, the Republicans are going to work over whatever Democrats they can get their hands on and the Democrats will continue to look for some authority to save their ass. The problem is that they are "the authorities." A story about gay bashing illustrates my point and the solution.
Last spring a couple of lovers were walking hand in hand down the Pearl Street Mall when they were accosted by a couple of drunk college students.
According to eyewitness statements, Justin Dwayne King, 23, of Boulder, was walking arm in arm near the Pearl Street Mall with his 18-year-old friend, Anthony Loose, when two reportedly drunk attackers used a derogatory word for gays and shoved King.
At this point Anthony King asked his attackers why they were saying such hateful things. Adam Perez, one of the assailants, answered:
BECAUSE I CAN!
A fight started and Justin Dwayne King kicked some gay bashing butt. He broke Perez's nose and blackened both of Eric Schorling's eyes. After King won the fight, only suffering some minor bruises, Perez and Schorling were arrested, suspended from CU and prosecuted by the Boulder DA. I love King's comment.
"I guess things are going as planned," said King, who has recovered from the scrapes and bruises he got during the melee. "Unfortunately, what they did is going to jeopardize the rest of their lives. ... Maybe next time they'll think of the consequences of something before they do it."
This scuffle in Boulder is instructive. If King had just let things go, Perez and Schorling would have surely engaged in this behavior again and again and again. If King and Loose had walked away and called the cops, nothing would have happened. The cops have more important things to do. Because King chose to stand and fight, Schorling and Perez got a beat down, got arrested and are being prosecuted. They will be known as the gay bashers that got stomped.
Democrats have got to start fighting. They may get bruised up in the process, but if we are going to stop the Republicans, we have got to start knocking heads figuratively and sometimes literally. Democrats have got to throw off the non-confrontational model and realize that all they do is give the Republicans space to operate when they turn the other cheek. "Because I can!" should never be something that crosses a Republican's mind when they are considering some sort of political dirty trick. They need to be considering the consequences....always considering the consequences.
Being right isn't enough; you have to fight for what's right.
