[extropy-chat] The no-need-to-change-things party

[Terry W. Colvin]

"First, the party is increasingly dominated by people who have no yearning
for growth: public-sector workers; academics and trustafarians who both live
off inherited endowments; environmentalists who want to regulate SUVs and
urban sprawl; and billionaires who are too rich to aspire to anything.  (One
of the best statistics of the campaign is that people worth $1m-10m
supported Mr Bush by a 63-37% margin, whereas those worth more than $10m
favoured Mr Kerry 59-41%.)

"Second, the Democratic Party is ceasing to be a mom-and-pop party.  Phillip
Longman of the New America Foundation points out that the fertility rate in
the Kerry states is 12% lower than in the Bush states.  Vermont, the home of
Howard Dean and perhaps the most left-wing state in the country, produces an
annual average of 49 children for every 1,000 women of child-bearing age; in
Utah, where 71% of the population voted for Mr Bush, the figure is 91.  In
deep-blue cities such as San Francisco and Seattle you find more dogs than
children.

"The Democrats are not beyond redemption.  Mr Clinton showed they can triumph
in the suburbs by preaching economic growth and social responsibility.  But
they must abandon all this comforting claptrap about fear being Mr Bush's
friend--and start to focus on the much more devastating truth.  In America,
self-styled progressives look ever more the party of the past, and confessed
conservatives are the ones focusing on the future."

Lexington | The fear myth
The Economist
November 20th-26th 2004
p. 38


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
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