Politics, Government & Public Policy: March 2004 Archives

I've said it before and I'll say it again: political polls taken over the weekend are useless! The recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll that everyone's talking about -- showing President Bush surging against John Kerry -- almost certainly underestimates the President's popularity. Why? Because it was taken Friday through Sunday and more Democrats stay at home during the weekend than Republicans.

So I called one of my old polling friends, Republican Ed Goeas, who worked with me years ago in Christine Todd Whitman's tax-cutting 1993 gubernatorial victory in New Jersey. Along with Democrat Celinda Lake, Goeas publishes the highly-regarded Battleground Survey. He told me to be careful about reading the polls. For one thing, it really matters if polls are conducted during the week or over the weekend. He told me that "political pollsters don't poll on the weekends. They prefer Sunday night through Thursday night. Weekend results are just not reflective of where a given race really is."

Goeas explained that more Democrats are found at home on the weekends, especially blue-collar Democrats. He added that "anyone who spends 20 to 30 minutes during the weekend talking to some pollster is not normal."

Reader Jim Price emailed and pointed me to an article on WorldNetDaily about an pair of bills in Congress designed to limit the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary by preventing them from ruling on cases "involving government officials who acknowledge God 'as the sovereign source of law, liberty or government.'" The text of the bills reads, in part:

The Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari, or otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an element of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official personal capacity), by reason of that element's or officer's acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.

If these bills pass each house of Congress the resulting law would be one of the first high-profile steps of public backlash against what many perceive to be a judiciary that is far out of step with mainstream America. By removing this issue from the purview of the judiciary it might also be possible to lessen the level of partisanship involved with federal judicial nominations -- judges with less power over controversial issues won't be as controversial themselves.

I tentatively support such a law, but I suggest that it be designed to expire after a limited amount of time, say 10 years. If it works well I can see the floodgates opening and an imminent era of vastly reduced judicial power as issues that split the "elite" from the "common man" are removed from the judicial sphere one by one.

A second part of the proposed law would attempt to prohibit judges from basing rulings on so-called "international law" and norms.

In interpreting and applying the Constitution of the United States, a court of the United States may not rely upon any constitution, law, administrative rule, Executive order, directive, policy, judicial decision, or any other action of any foreign state or international organization or agency, other than the constitutional law and English common law.

Federal judges would still have to enforce treaties that America agreed to, but the interpretation of our Constitution wouldn't be determined by international organizations (like the UN) or "evolving international law", whatever that means.

I don't know how effective such a law would be because I'm not confident that judges' rulings are always honestly tied to the explanations they give. Judges could still rule based on these un-American factors but simply stop saying so and cloak their reasoning behind more acceptable justifications. Still, it might make their jobs more difficult.

Many Americans may be surprised that Congress has the power to limit the scope of the judiciary -- it's an authority that has rarely been used, like the impeachment authority -- but Article III only grants some limited power to the Supreme Court and leaves the rest to Congress' discretion.

The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. ...

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

It will be fascinating to see how this plays out. If the Democrats had control of Congress and the White House, what restrictions would they put on the judiciary? Would any judicial restrictions be possible without a unified government?

Update:
Justin Katz comments and makes a good point I hadn't considered: if any branch of government is going to be over-powered, it should be the legislative. Congress is closer to the people than either of the other two branches, and tends to be the most responsive.

Some towns in Kansas are giving away land to lure new residents. It's an interesting move. Governments have a recent tradition of offering subsidies to companies who relocate and bring jobs into a community, but historically it's been much more common to offer land to people willing to move to sparsely-populated regions. Sometimes people are moved to land emptied by war or famine, and sometimes conquered land needs to be subjugated and assimilated.

In this case, the value of the land isn't very high, and the giveaway is probably more effective as an attention-getting gimmick than as an actual economic incentive.

I wonder what the foes of "urban sprawl" think about this? Is it good because it may draw people into smaller communities, or is it bad because these communities really serve as housing suburbs for nearby cities?

I'll admit I'm a bit surprised by early reports coming from the 9/11 Commission saying America should have acted militarily against Al Qaeda sooner than we did. I've referred to the panel as a "political sideshow", but perhaps I was wrong.

WASHINGTON — The Clinton and Bush administrations secretly considered but ultimately rejected a range of military actions against Usama bin Laden (search) and his Al Qaeda (search) network prior to Sept. 11, 2001.

A preliminary report by the Sept. 11 commission found that while the U.S. government pursued diplomacy and sought a better military plan, bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders eluded capture. A recurring theme in the report is that U.S. leaders believed they lacked "actionable intelligence" — timely and reliable information — on bin Laden's whereabouts.

It sounds like we had a few potential chances to hit OBL with cruise missiles or commandos that we didn't take because we didn't want to risk failure and/or killing civilians.

I'm now much more interested to hear what the panel comes up with as its work progresses.

Update:
Here's a key passage from today's article:

Tuesday's report also said that both the Clinton and Bush administrations engaged in lengthy, ultimately fruitless diplomatic efforts instead of military action to try to get bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Both Rumsfeld and Powell expressed doubt that the administration, which took office less than eight months before the attacks, could have stopped them through military force.

Sometimes diplomacy just isn't the way to go, as much as we might prefer a peaceful solution. Since planning for 9/11 began in 1998 and the hijackers were all in the US by the time President Bush took office (right? or maybe two weren't yet) it's not likely that military action so late in the game could have made a difference. But if President Clinton had walked rather than talked in the 1990s maybe 9/11 could have been avoided. Hindsight is always 20/20, but this doesn't seem like rocket science.

If the 9/11 Commission weren't a political sideshow these are the questions they'd be asking Dick Clarke. Mr. Clarke is performing on the pundit circuit and promoting his new book placing most of the blame for 9/11 on the Bush Administration, even though he himself was in charge of counter-terrorism under President Clinton from (I think) 1997 to 2001, and involved in counter-terrorism for many years before that.

The Business at Hand.

Bill Hobbs has a great piece outlining how John Kerry is so focused on responding to terrorist attacks that he's forgetting to prevent them. Mr. Hobbs accuses Senator Kerry of wanting to put the US on the defensive rather than continue taking the fight to the terrorists as President Bush has done.

That, in brief, is the stark choice America faces in November. Do we keep the coach who is playing offense in the War on Terror, taking the battle to where the enemy lives and breeds, smashing their stronghold in Afghanistan, setting a trap for them in Iraq, and confronting Islamist terrorists by planting that which they loathe the most - freedom and democracy for Muslims - in the heart of their territory. Or do we hire a new coach who will switch to defense and focus on preparing the firefighters and police and "first responders' to douse the flames and dig the bodies from under the rubble of the next attack?

Excellent post, and excellent point.

With the difficulty of protecting trains from terrorists, it may be wise for Los Angeles' elite to reconsider their religious commitment to light rail. It's much easier to kill hundreds of people packed into a train than spread out in cars on a freeway. Sure, a bridge could be blown and traffic could be brought to a standstill for a while, but that's no worse than taking out a train line, and there would be fewer casualties. It would also be a lot harder to take out a freeway interchange made of reinforced concrete than to collapse a subway tunnel, dislodge a few rails, or blow up passengers at a station.

The California Coastal Commission -- which has almost total control over every bit of California land within three miles of the ocean -- is suing the federal government to prevent the US Border Patrol from building the last segment of a border fence over "Smuggler's Gulch".

The commission last month voted the final three-mile project down and sued to stop continuation of the project.

"We only look at whether a project complies with the environmental laws," said Scott Peters of the coastal commission. "We have people testify to us about national security, on the other side about human rights, that's really not what the basis of our decision is."

But the Border Patrol (search) agents and some U.S. lawmakers say it should be and they warn that an open border is a greater threat to national security.

"If you look at the list of people who have crossed that piece of the border in the last several years there are a ton of people that come from terrorist nations and from states that back terrorism," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Foolish Rep. Hunter... trying to use logic on environmentalists is futile!

What's at stake? According to what appears to be the CCC's own biological survey, completing the fence could "harass" up to seven birds. Yes, that's right, seven.

Despite the fact that President Bush hadn't mentioned any of his potential Democrat opponents by name until Senator John Edwards dropped out of the primary, Senator John Kerry is saying Bush "made history".

Kerry, engaged in an increasingly bitter exchange of negative ads with Bush, said the president had made "history" by launching attack ads on his opponent earlier in the campaign than any previous incumbent.

I guess all the negative attacks by the various Democrats throughout their primary don't count for anything.

It looks like the Republicans are going to use Kerry's pathetic (history-making?) absentee record in the Senate (which I pointed out last month) against him. I hope this tactic is effective, because in my opinion office-holders who want to run for other stuff shouldn't let their current job suffer during the campaign -- I bet both Dems and Reps do this, but the honorable thing would be to resign.

Joined on stage by four local residents who had lost their jobs and their health insurance, Kerry said they had to make tough choices between critical care for families and everyday necessities.

He has offered a $72 billion-a-year plan to expand access to health insurance and make it more affordable, paying for it by repealing tax cuts for Americans who make more than $200,000.

The Bush campaign said Kerry had accomplished little in the Senate to help Americans get better health care coverage and had missed 36 of 38 votes on prescription drug legislation.

"The only thing he has ever done on behalf of America's seniors is vote eight times for higher taxes on their Social Security benefits," said Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign.

Colin Powell is using some of his "good cop" credibility to pressure Kerry to give the names of foreign leaders he claims want him to beat the President.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, under pressure to say which foreign leaders were rooting for him to beat President Bush, refused on Sunday to reveal any names.

"No leader would obviously share a conversation if I started listing them," Kerry told reporters after Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested he name some names or stop implying foreign leaders were encouraging him to beat Bush.

Kerry, who visited the battleground state of Pennsylvania to slam Bush's health care policy and hold a town hall meeting, said last week he had met foreign leaders who told him "you've got to beat this guy" because of unhappiness over U.S. foreign policy.

He was challenged on the issue by Powell, who said on "Fox News Sunday" that "if he feels it is that important an assertion to make, he ought to list some names. If he can't list names, then perhaps he should find something else to talk about."

I know I'm biased, but these particular counterattacks by the Republicans feel like they should be much more effective than the attacks coming from the left. Am I wrong? Is "Bush lied!!!" going to beat these reasoned arguments?

I've written about over-legislation before, and Radley Balko of The Agitator has a great piece about the problem over at FoxNews: "America Mired in Morass of Laws and Regulations".

America has too many laws, and the laws we do have are tedious, overly complex and sometimes not only impossible to understand, but impossible to comply with. Our elected officials pass laws in fits of whimsy, responding to the latest scare headlines, demands from interest groups or data from polling firms. Reason, freedom or constitutional authority rarely enter into the debate. ...

Consider, for example, the position Congress found itself in last year after passing the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (search), that Rube Goldberg-ian hunk of legislation that was supposed to flush the corruption out of politics:

Although Congress generally exempts itself from most of the laws it passes, this law applies specifically to Congress. The same congressmen who voted for the bill were now required to abide by it. Faced themselves with the burden of complying with the complex, inches-thick laws they pass for others, both parties were forced to hold education sessions with specialty lawyers explaining to them what they could and couldn’t do under the new law. A lawyer who taught the Democrats told The New York Times that his seminars elicited “a sort of slack-jawed amazement at how far this thing reached.” A lawyer who taught the Republicans said: “There's an initial stage where the reaction is, 'This can't be true.' And then there's the actual anger stage." Democratic Rep. Henry Matsui, who championed the bill, told the Times, “I didn’t realize all that was in it.”

That’s how much careful consideration Congress gave a bill it passed that applied to itself. Now imagine how little thought and care goes into bills it passes that apply to everyone else.

The answer, of course, is none.

Kudos to FoxNews for so frequently carrying articles by bloggers.

Kerry-McCain? Huh. If such a bizarre thing were to happen, it would further support the notion that the Democrats care more about winning than anything else, like principles.

"It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk," the Arizona senator told ABC's "Good Morning America" during an interview about illegal steroid use. "They'd have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen."

It would sure be an interesting ticket though... Senator McCain appeals to a lot of independents... nah. Maybe a McCain-Kerry ticket is the way for the Dems to go!

Despite much of the conventional wisdom claiming that '04 is going to be a squeaker, I'm going to stick to -- and reiterate -- my prediction that George Bush will win in a landslide. Stories already abound of disillusioned Democrats with little hope of a Kerry victory. Many insiders expect the Clintons to be working against him, paving the road for Hillary in 2008.

I'll be happy to eat crow if I'm wrong, but all the Democrats have to run with is visceral anger with no real foundation; I don't think that's going to motivate the electorate for eight more months. The extreme leftists are mostly angry because they're out of power, but the moderate leftists don't have much to complain about -- President Bush has already enacted many of their pet policies.

Mark emailed me some posts he has up at Outdoors Pro about the secret meetings that led to the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Oregon.

This is just hilarious! "not an attempt to circumvent the will of the people"?? Are you kidding me? What do you call it when four out of five county commissioners meet in secret, intentionally excluding the lone opposing commissioner, to come up with a flimsy legal argument for an action that the majority of Oregon citizens oppose? Then carrying out that action with no prior notice or discussion, with the voters or in the courts or legislature?

The underlying assumption of modern leftist ideology is that "the people" are sheep to be led by the "enlightened" "elite" -- it's far too dangerous to let them be masters of their own destiny.

If you don't have many issues to attack the President on, attack his ads.

Update:
Compare this strategy with the mthods used by France, Germany, the UN, et al, to tie the hands of America before we went into Iraq. They knew they didn't have the power to actually stop us, so they focused all their energy on harrassing us with accusations of unfairness and unilateralism. If you can't win, change the game.

I've said previously (although I can't find a link) that there's no way Hillary Clinton will accept the VP spot on John Kerry's ticket. Today, reader Jim Price emailed me a WorldNetDaily article claiming she's lobbying hard for just that position.

Frankly, I don't buy it, even still. The only way I could see such an occurance is if, as the article suggests, she intends to sabotage the campaign from the inside.

Concludes Tyrrell: "Running as veep on a Kerry ticket might not doom her to second fiddle for eight years. The trial might last only eight months, and if the valiant ticket goes down to the hellish Bush she would be seen as the loyalist of loyal Democrats, a Joan of Arc to her party."

So perhaps my earlier statement was a bit hasty, since I didn't then forsee such a devious strategy.

Opinion Journal has a fascinating profile of billionaire George Soros; I'm filing it under "politics" because this guy is probably the largest single donor to Democrat politics in the country. Who is George Soros?

"I have made rejection of the Bush doctrine the central project of my life," announced George Soros in January. "I am determined to do what I can," he added, to assure that President Bush is not re-elected.

Coming from someone else, such statements might be written off as delusional, but Mr. Soros is a man with a record of achieving outsized goals. A financier who began with a stake of a few thousand dollars, he traded and speculated his way to a fortune of many billions, making him one of the world's richest men. ...

As an alternative to the arrogance of American supremacy secured by means of military power, Mr. Soros proposes the "Soros doctrine." Through the good agency of the United Nations and our own foreign-aid efforts, he writes, we need to answer our enemies not with force of arms but with "preventive action of a constructive nature."

What explains this surpassing faith in the efficacy of international governance and institutions, especially in light of the record of such institutions in recent years, not to say over the past century? ...

Cold as he is toward the Jewish people, Mr. Soros is not much warmer toward his adopted country. "I had never quite become an American," he once said. Now he complains that today's America "is not the America I chose as my home," as if, by turning conservative and electing George W. Bush as President, the country has failed to live up to him.

The egotism of the remark is revealing. Mr. Soros has admitted to having "carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood, which I felt I had to control, otherwise they might get me in trouble." Having made his mark, he now seems to give them free rein. He told one interviewer that he had "godlike, messianic ideas," and another that he sometimes thought of himself as "superhuman." To still a third he explained that his "goal is to become the conscience of the world."

Sounds like a brilliant nutcase to me.

It looks like my favored propositions are going to be approved, and the stupid propositions are going to fail.

Californians overwhelmingly embraced a $15 billion deficit bond Tuesday and a companion measure that were key to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's (search) plan for a fiscal recovery that avoids deep cuts or new taxes.

With 15 percent of precincts reporting, the bond measure, Proposition 57 (search), had 61 percent support and the Proposition 58 balanced budget measure had 71 percent.

They aren't perfect -- I would have preferred the deep spending cuts -- but they're better than tax hikes. And it's just possible we might eke out a few years of balanced budgets before the loopholes take over.

Proposition 56, which would have made it easier to pass budgets and raise statewide taxes, lost with just 36 percent support.

I'm incredibly relieved to see that voters weren't dumb enough to fall for this nonsense. As it is, a 2/3 supermajority is needed to pass tax increases, and Prop 56 would have reduced that requirement to 55%... by coincidence, nearly the percentage of Democrats in the legislature. They were slobbering over this one. Good job, California.

Proposition 55, authorizing $12.3 billion to pay for new and improved schools, was trailing with 48 percent support.

It's for the children! Screw 'em. I know my mom won't be happy though. Our school system is a black hole, no matter how much money we pour into it it doesn't get any better. Maybe we should try something radical, like busting up the teachers union.

Here are the live election returns.

Update:
Aw crap, now the education bond is narrowly passing with 78.3% of precincts reporting. Toss another billion on the barbie.

Actually, it's very close, and only half of conservative-ish San Diego County and Orange County have been counted. I'll cross my fingers and go to sleep.

Isn't it bizarre to see leftists making everything into a matter of "freedom" in a manner precisely opposite to reality?

The California Supreme Court has ruled that Catholic Charities must provide contraception as a part of its employee healthcare package, despite the Catholic church's belief that artificial contraception is a sin (which I certainly don't agree with). Nevertheless, this newly imposed obligation is hailed as a victory for "freedom".

State Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer called the decision "a huge victory for working women in California."

"It is plainly discriminatory for health and disability insurance plans to not cover contraceptives that were approved by the FDA almost 40 years ago, yet offer coverage for Viagra as soon as that drug was approved by the FDA," Lockyer said.

What does how long ago the FDA approved something have to do with whether or not an employer should be forced to provide it?

Margaret Crosby, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, called the decision a "shining example of California leadership in reproductive freedom."

Ah, the freedom to force other people to buy things for you -- the foundation of modern liberalism. Too bad it's not, you know, liberty.

In a bizarrely insane twist, Governor Arnold is now enthusiastic about a revamped proposal for giving illegal aliens drivers licenses... hey, isn't that the issue that got Grey Davis ousted in the first place? Maybe Arnold should put the issue to the public as a ballot measure, as he's otherwise so fond of doing.

Ok, let's look at the wacky details.

Mr. Savage said that after at least two "face-to-face meetings," the governor and Mr. Cedillo have agreed that driver's licenses for undocumented workers should look exactly like other licenses.

"Before, there was discussion that the licenses should look different in some way," Mr. Savage said. "We didn't want that, because it would be akin to having a scarlet letter that could alert police [and others] to their status. So the governor had the same feeling and said, 'OK, that's fine.' "

Oh no, a scarlet letter! Next thing you know they'll be a website listing the residences of sex offenders! Sigh. What is there to say, really? It's like living in a hall of mirrors.

"With the jobs and hours these folks work, they really don't have a choice but to drive," Mr. Savage said. "And I think they want to comply with the law where they can."

Except, of course, for the laws that told them they couldn't come here in the first place. Why do I doubt that people whose very presence makes a mockery of our country will be eager to buy auto insurance? Unfortunately car insurance is expensive, so I'm sure public subsidies for insurance for illegal aliens are right around the corner.

So what's the real deal? There couldn't possibly be some nefarious purpose behind it all.

Opponents insist that there's a more insidious reason behind the idea: to flood the voter rolls with illegal aliens, most of whom may vote Democratic. Under the "Motor Voter" law, new drivers automatically receive voter-registration forms in the mail, and a license is all the identification they need to vote in California.

Haha, that's so silly!

Curt at Hunting the Muse has an excellent, and pragmatic, perspective on third-party preference voting and how wise leftists would be to set their preferences aside for now and work within the existing system.

Over the last couple of years, I have done quite a bit of research into U.S. political voting systems and various vote-counting methods. I've come up with the following conclusions:

1. The presidential race should absolutely not have third-party candidates.
2. Preference voting is not the answer for presidential voting while the Electoral College exists.
3. Democrats and Greens need to share fault for 2000, and share the responsibility to join forces in 2004.
4. Bush technically had more electoral support than Gore even without the 5. Supreme Court's help.

Curt's analysis is pretty spot-on, although I disagree with some of his conclusions. We both agree that the Electoral College isn't going anywhere, but I think that's a Good Thing. Given that political reality, Curt has some advise for far-left voters who are inclined to vote with their principles rather than support the Democratic party.

But imagine what would happen should a Green, Libertarian, or Reform candidate get enough support to actually win a state or two. First, absolutely nothing happens for the third-party candidate. They would have to win at least the eleven most populous states (which includes California, Florida, and Texas; a strange trifecta). But, what would happen is that either the third party would be ideologically similar to one of the two major parties, splitting its support, or it would lead to none of the parties getting 270 votes.

When no candidate gets 270 votes, the election goes to Congress for them to decide among themselves. And unless the third party has strong congressional representation, they are out of luck.

The long and short of it is that if a third party wants to become president, they are either going to have to have a strong enough national party to enable them to win several states outright, or they are going to have to have a strong enough national party that they would have a plurality of congressional representatives in Congress. Either way, it requires a strong national party with significant local and statewide support and a significant number of elected officials. None of our third parties have this level of strong support at this time.

Curt then goes on to suggest that third parties form coalitions -- similar to what happens in parliamentary governments -- but it's clear to me that such coalitions would be powerless, in practice, apart from their major party member, as long as we stick with the present electoral system. (Coalitions would only be dragged towards the fringe by the junior partners, to the detriment of all in the coalition.)

I know many people don't like the electoral system, but that's generally because their views are so far from the mainstream that they have no power under our winner-takes-all system. The Electoral College almost requires two major parties, and it also serves to drag both parties towards the "center" of the political spectrum. That fringe groups don't have representation isn't a bug, it's a feature. The electoral system serves to dampen out the political noise that can hamstring government, as can be seen in many European nations. When governments are forced to depend on coalitions, junior partners have an extraordinary amount of tie-breaking power that's vastly disproportional to their size. See, for further example of this effect, both the Democrat and Republican primaries.

Drudge has some quotes from Sunday's Democrat debate in New York City (link probably perishable) and John Edwards repeats a common refrain of many rich leftists.

EDWARDS: Here's the truth. The truth is that I come from the same place most Americans have come from. I grew up in a family where my father worked in the mill, working -- didn't make me any different than most people in this country. I mean, he worked hard, he had a high school education. I was the first person in my family to go to college. ...

What this is about for me, in its simplest terms, is trying to make sure that other Americans get the same chance that I've had.

But that's not really true. John Edwards' family didn't have socialized medicine, didn't depend on welfare, and so forth. What the Democrats are ostensibly proposing isn't to "give people opportunity"; they're proposing to give people for free the rewards that are currently earned by taking advantage of the opportunities that exist naturally.

I don't want to see us, those of us who've had the great luck to have done pretty well in this country, to pull the ladder up behind us. We want to make it available to more people, no matter where they live, who their family is or what the color of their skin is.

I wonder if Mr. Edwards' father would agree that his success was due to "luck"?

No one blatantly wants to "pull the ladder up behind" them, but the types of socialistic structural changes the Democrats are constantly demanding would, in effect, do just that by destroying the system that has produced such great wealth over the past century.