"Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You..."

It's Primary Day in a lot of places, Arizona being one of them. For most people, this cartoon describes accurately what they're voting for:

I can't count the number of times I've heard someone on the Democrat side of the aisle complain that the poor and middle class votes Republican "against their own self-interest,"^* insisting by inference that not voting to "take his money and give it to you" is, well, undemocratic. Read the money quote from that link:

Why do so many poor and middle class people vote for Republicans against their own self-interest? Because if they aren't rich now, 40% of them believe they will be soon. As it turns out, the American Dream is just that...

Yes, friends, the idea that you can earn your way to wealth is just a pipe-dream. Better that you vote someone into office so that they can steal appropriate just enough money for you from the already-wealthy to make you even more dependent on government. That's how they define "self-interest."

The concepts of sacrifice, delayed gratification, fairness, and just plain right have been inverted, twisted, and damned-near obliterated by the Left.

So, go to the polls today and vote, not for yourself, but for the future. Vote, if it's available, for what's right rather than what's immediately gratifying. If thats not available, vote against those who would take from A and give to B, just to get B's vote. But vote. You may not be able to stop the toboggan ride to hell, but you can at least try to throw out an anchor to slow it down.

*Here's some more wonderful "self-interest" quotes:

"Whenever a group of people will vote for a President, put a man in power and do that against their own self-interest, their economic self-interest..." begins Richard "Skip" Daly, business manager of the Laborers, Hod Carriers, Cement Workers and Miners Local Union 169 (Nevada), before stopping and rewording his thought. He tries again: "They voted for a Republican who's got the biggest deficit spending ever; they voted against all of their self-interest. And the issue that came out in exit polling was 'we voted on the moral values.' What that says to me is, these people believe it's more important than their family's well-being that we don't have abortion. And, to me, that is an intolerance that we have not experienced in this country since we put into insignificance the Ku Klux Klan." - The Nation, 11/18/04

Yes, actually believing in something like morals is "undemocratic."

Poor Republicans are working against their own self-interests. People in the military who vote Republican are working against their own self-interests. Gay people who vote Republican (apologies to Andrew Sullivan) are working against their own self-interest. Hell, unless you're, say, the CEO of a large multinational corporation, voting Republican is against your self-interest.

That's why I called it "ignorance." :) - "Deanocrat" in this comment thread.

Perhaps they're voting for some value you just don't have the capacity to grasp? And here's another:

I am surprised at how ignorant and uniformed the public is regarding the estate tax. When my father passed away, there was about 200K left to be divided between my brother and me. My brother (who votes Republican, I think because of guns and because he's now a father and thinks that is what fathers do....not that I understand that) was self-congratulatory about this, saying that because of Bush we wouldn't have to pay the estate tax, etc. He had absolutely no concept of the difference in what the estate tax was versus the inheritance tax. When I explained the difference between the two and pointed out the estate tax limits, etc. he still seemed to think that Bush's plan was a good one even though he will never benefit from it. Just another example of the middle class voting against their own self-interest. I guess my brother hasn't figured out that lower taxes for the wealthy will eventually mean higher taxes (or reduced services, such as homeland security) for him and a huge burden of national debt for his children to pay off. - Posted by "ann" in this comment thread.

The concept of "it's their money" just doesn't reach the Left. Nope, it's the GOVERNMENT'S money, to them. And they just don't grasp how anyone could see it differently.