AN OPEN LETTER TO LEONARD LEO

There's a joke among economists and Civil Rights activists:

Q: What is the difference between libertarians and civil libertarians?

A) We're civil.

You Leonard, graduated from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. That's a prestigious higher education. Many of us wonder how someone with such distinguished scholarship can speak with such imprecision. Is it because you are a Republican? They seem to have a distance to travel between word usage and word meaning. Do we have evidence to bolster our statement? Yes! You people give us plenty of examples. You even elected an example this year for president, after an undistinguished first term. For someone of your credentials to speak with the level of intolerance that we have come to expect from you people means, either you are speaking down to us, or you do not care to speak with us. On a recent day you were interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition. In that interview you said quite explicitely that you want to "crush liberal dominance". I have searched my memory for such signs of liberal dominance. It certainly wasn't Al Gore. It Wasn't John Kerry. It wasn't Barack Obama, he managed to get some things done in his two terms that you folks did not like. Much of that opposition might have been your distaste for the color of his skin, combined with your hatred of Democrats, Nancy Pelosi...and democracy. There was no liberal dominance when Hillary ran for president, Joe Biden got some stuff done that you didn't like; which he did in spite of your legislative obstruction thanks to a slight Democratic majority in the Senate, and a slim Republican majority in the House that couldn't avoid fighting among themselves. Kamela Harris was not exhibiting any of that liberal dominance, appealing as she did to Liz Cheney, William Krystal, and other former Republicans. Many of us liberals accepted that because we understand the necessity to compromise-even if you don't. I may not be the brightest LED on the Christmas tree but I don't see any liberal dominance in that 24 year timespan mentioned above, or the 24 years before that. Or even before that. Things have seemed, to my way of thinking, pretty even between the two parties, even though I would have preferred to see you people wiped off of the political map with the help of the Covid 19 pandemic. You begin your statement with your desire to "crush" liberal dominance. I do not have your prestigious academic credentials, but I know a few things about words. So what do you mean by crush? Most contests where one of the combatants is crushed result with the losing contestant not being able to mount another defense. Losing is not the same as crush, idiot! Somebody needs to explain to you and your stupid party, that the definition of democracy means to find some middle ground in the legislature that both caucuses can agree on. I don't see where that happens where one side is crushed and the other side dreams nightly of delivering the final crush. In addition, when one is "crushed" by an opponent, in any event where civility is to be practiced, the defeated candidate is inclined to view their opponent as an asshole. In the same way that we have viewed the Republican party, going back to Ronald Reagan, as filled with morons and assholes. People like you! Arrogant, intolerant, and possessed of the strong desire to rule rather than legislate. How did this emerge in a country whose founding father's envisioned a society where ideas carried more weight than violence. In spite of our manifest injustices on native Americans and tolerance of slavery in former times, we have shown the world that democracy is a governing practice that is well-adapted to grow and prosper. The kind of prosperity where most people can participate in that prosperity. We have also gone through periods of history where we learned that a government ruled by a small cadre of wealthy people was not healthy for our democratic ambitions. We saw that in the era of the Robber Barons, what Mark Twain called, the Gilded Age.

 That was the end of the 19th century, culminating in the Great Depression, starting in 1929. Since that time we have had six periods when the economy suffered. They all followed a Republican presidency. You people keep proposing the same policies which nearly always end the same way. Dwight Eisenhower may be the only Republican president that did not tank the economy. Maybe because, before President Eisenhower was elected to that position, he was 4-star General Eisenhower. He knew, more than most, that the men who stormed the beaches at his command to fight fascism were strong enough to be an effective fighting force thanks to FDR and the economic policies that emerged from the New Deal. Perhaps your father was not one of them. Maybe he was loaning money to Germany to further his wealth. All I know is that was, I believe, a time before you had an understanding of the differences in the two party's. Before the Heritage foundation emerged to guide you in your training pants to be a young Republican. And now we are entering another Gilded Age, with our own Robber Barons. Those robber barons are, once more in positions of great power. They will succeed for a while; people will suffer while you fill your coffers with public money. But eventually people will rebel. Especially when those people have previously tasted the elixir of democracy. What people like you, with your hatred of liberals and the thing they brought about after the time of the enlightenment philosophers, have not succeeded in remembering, is that our national anthem does not Appeal to God to save the king because of 18th century liberals. We overthrew the king God couldn't save. We also overthrew his divine rights. Because of that momentous event you have the choice of supporting the Dallas Cowboys, the Cleveland Browns, and other NFL franchises. You can also support West Ham United if that is your wish, in the same way you supported economic monarchy. But you have not been given the right to replace the Constitution. The time will come when your dictatorship enrages enough people that you will be remembered for the assholes you were. Let me assure you Leonard Leo, when democracy reasserts itself it will not dominate anybody. Even assholes like you. We will not try to crush you, though you certainly deserve it. Even though we are liberal, we are very conservative of preserving the documents that made us a democracy. 

Unlike you.