California Democrats for Tyranny
Today I received an e-mail press release from Justice Network, which describes itself as a “California based Social Awareness Organization” (their capitalization — who knows what it means?). It seems they commissioned a poll of committed California Democrats on several popular issues of the moment. The results are not surprising on the surface; but I believe they reveal more than meets the eye.
Here is Justice Network’s own synopsis:
1. In regard to Sanctuary Cities, 60% voted in favor, 19% said they would not support Sanctuary cities and the undecideds were 21%.
2. They inquired if Democrats would repeal the Second Amendment and restrict gun ownership to average citizens. A solid 54% polled said they were in favor of repealing the Second Amendment, while 29% said no and 17% were undecided.
3. Their next question was based on Police’s usage of firearms, as well as deadly force. “Should the use of police firearms be severely restricted?” 48% said they should be restricted, 29% said they should not be restricted and 23% were undecided.
4. The final question was an analysis of Democrat Party faithfulness. How often do democrats cross over and vote for issues or candidates in the other major parties? A) I would never vote for a Republican: Received 15%. B) I am open to voting for a Republican, but seldom do, received 81%. C) I am a registered Democrat, but seldom vote a straight party ticket 4% and finally D) I have no particular loyalty to the Democratic Party. Received 0%.
First of all, to return to my earlier point, what’s with the random capitalization? Why “Sanctuary Cities,” and then, later in the same sentence, “Sanctuary cities”? Do they think “sanctuary” is a proper name? And why, in question 3, is “Police” capitalized? I have no Idea whether this peculiarity is just Carelessness, or perhaps indicates something (but what?) about the meaning Justice Network ascribes to these Terms?
In any case, items 3 and 4 may be dismissed as essentially meaningless. For question 3 is so abstractly worded that no two respondents can be assumed to have had the same thought in mind when they answered it. What does “severely restricted” mean? Obviously, to a leftist who assumes the police are always going around shooting minorities without cause, the use of firearms by police (or Police) should be restricted — that is, the police should be prevented from shooting minorities without cause. But is that what the question is asking? If it is, then the answer should be one hundred percent “Yes,” shouldn’t it? If that is not what the question is getting at, then the respondent, to give a meaningful answer, would need much more information: Restricted under what circumstances? Restricted in what way? How is “severely” defined in this poll?
Without such clarifications, the 48% “Yes” response cannot be interpreted in any coherent way at all, except that these are people who believe police shoot a lot of innocent people. Okay, whatever.
Question 4, meanwhile, is even less informative, since it is one of those questions that reveal more about the way people wish to be perceived (or to perceive themselves) than about their genuine attitudes or behavior. Not surprisingly, this is the only question in which the leading percentage is so overwhelming: 81% of “High Propensity” Democratic voters — i.e., committed Party supporters — claim they “are open to voting for a Republican, but seldom do.” In other words, most of these people are likely in the group who would never vote for a Republican, but they sense that such an honest answer would make them look like knee-jerk partisans, and they want to appear (to themselves) as serious, thinking people who truly understand the issues and form reasoned judgments in each election. So they tell the pollster (and their consciences) that they do sincerely consider the Republican candidate in each election and just happen to come down rationally on the Democrat side every time.
Thus, the only questions in this poll that actually reveal anything meaningful about the attitudes or beliefs of California Democrats are questions 1 and 2, regarding sanctuary cities and the Second Amendment.
But what those questions reveal, I suspect, is not as obvious as the raw numbers might indicate. Let us take a moment to consider the results a little more closely.
1. In regard to Sanctuary Cities, 60% voted in favor, 19% said they would not support Sanctuary cities and the undecideds were 21%.
On its face, one might be inclined to read this to mean that California Democrats are so radicalized that a clear majority of them actually support sanctuary city laws to thwart the enforcement of federal immigration statutes. I believe, however, that the implication is much more extreme than that. Remember that we are talking about committed voting members of a party that has been strongly advocating amnesty for illegal immigrants for many years, and using this as a wedge issue to ensure the Hispanic vote, as well as to expand the permanent electorate leftward forever by padding the voter population with low-income, low-education workers from a socialist upbringing. Remember further that California is perhaps the most progressive of all U.S. states on this particular issue, for obvious demographic and historical reasons.
With that in mind, I offer the following somewhat counterintuitive interpretation of the poll result:
60% of California Democrats favor establishing sanctuary cities = 40% believe there should be no need for sanctuary cities, i.e., that sanctuary cities are a concession to the immigrant-hating conservatives, and that the whole country should be declared a “sanctuary” for immigrants — immigrants of the proper sort, of course, which is to say “undocumented” and meeting the criteria outlined above. In other words, the supporters of sanctuary city laws are the moderates in this poll, not the radicals.
2. They inquired if Democrats would repeal the Second Amendment and restrict gun ownership to average citizens. A solid 54% polled said they were in favor of repealing the Second Amendment, while 29% said no and 17% were undecided.
On its face, one might be inclined to read this to mean that California Democrats are so radicalized that a clear majority of them actually support overturning a basic premise of liberty embedded in the Constitution itself, namely that a free people must retain the right to defend itself against the potential overreach of government power. I believe, however, that the implication here, once again, is much more extreme than that surface reading. Remember that we are talking about committed voters for a party that has been strongly advocating gun control laws that clearly violate the Second Amendment for many years, and that both of the party’s leading presidential candidates in the 2016 primaries were on record as promoting gun bans and/or confiscation. Remember further that California Democrats are represented by some of the most vehement pro-gun-control politicians in the country, such as Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, and Jerry Brown.
With these factors in mind, I offer the following interpretation of the poll result:
54% of California Democrats favor repealing the Second Amendment = 46% think constitutional processes are obsolete, so why do they need to waste time on repealing the cowboy trash spewed two centuries ago by a bunch of dead white male slave owners?
In other words, the leading results on those two poll questions (60%, 54%) do not represent the radicalism of California Democrats. On the contrary, those percentages represent the conservative wing of the California Democratic Party, the ones who still think laws have to be nominally followed or enacted, and established procedures adhered to, along the path toward transforming America into a socialist tyranny. The rest of the respondents (40%, 46%) are real radicals of the party (defined relatively), the ones who think such an incremental shift into socialism is for timid old codgers who have forsaken the ideals of The Revolution and failed to overcome the rules of the game defined by the white male capitalists.
That is, those who appear at face value to be the poll’s “radical” element are in fact the relatively traditional faction. That’s how far “left” California Democrats are.
A final note on the Second Amendment question: Given the above assessment, with my conclusion that the 54% who favor repealing the Second Amendment are in fact the only semi-civilized respondents, in that they still think one must effect change on the right to bear arms through constitutional mechanisms, perhaps the really interesting poll would be one that asked the following questions of those Democrats in the 54% group:
- How is a constitutional amendment repealed?
- What is the Bill of Rights?
- Where do the rights named in the Bill of Rights come from?
- Does repealing an amendment in the Bill of Rights mean that the right named in that amendment no longer exists?
