WHAT DEMS DON'T GET By WILLIAM TUCKER

November 10, 2002 --

DEAR Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz,

I read after the election that you felt the Democratic Party has lost its way and needs to reconnect with voters. As a friendly Republican who believes in the two-party system, I'd like to proffer some advice.

Interestingly enough, I used to be a Democrat myself. I went to Mississippi in 1964, protested the Vietnam War, campaigned for McGovern and generally felt myself to be part of the Sixties generation. Yet, by 1982, I was a dissenter on environmentalism, an enthusiast for free enterprise and more and more fed up with the Democratic agenda.

Was it just a matter of getting old and conservative? I don't think so.

I always trace my conversion to an old girlfriend of mine who was in some Women's Consciousness-Raising Group that was trying to open a restaurant. They met for months on end without ever accomplishing anything. One day she got fed up and said, "To hell with this. I'm going to open the damned thing myself."

Within a month, she had the restaurant up and running. It became very successful.

To a person such as myself weaned on group "activism," it was a stunning revelation. After all, business people were supposed to be the selfish exploiters of the working class. Yet I suddenly realized that starting your own business is an act of courage and initiative. I also recognized there's a certain cowardice in the group-think that says you always have to be surrounded by people just like yourself.

Thus began the unraveling of my "class consciousness." I realized that nothing truly creative ever gets done except by individuals. At best, group effort only leeches off what other people have created.

The economy we live in is not a natural object. It was constructed piece-by-piece by inventive individuals and is upheld every day by people doing hard, fruitful labor. No one gets by simply by making strident demands on others. People who feel entitled to things don't understand how the world works. Unfortunately, most Democratic politics centers around "entitlements." The elderly are entitled to Social Security, even if it turns out to be a Ponzi scheme. Women are entitled to special treatment because of past discrimination. Blacks are entitled to reparations because of slavery. Illegal immigrants are entitled the full rights of citizens. Children are entitled to abortions, even if their parents don't approve. The only group that isn't entitled to anything is adult white males, and they can probably come up with something if they think about it long enough.

Trial lawyers - now the most powerful constituency in the Democratic Party - are the Ultra-Democrats. They believe everybody is entitled to everything. Scratch your finger and you're entitled to a million dollars. The "class action" is the perfect Democratic metaphor - a million people get $12 apiece and the lawyers walk off with the other $12 million.

I don't subscribe to this stuff anymore, and I don't think the American people do, either. People realize we've got a big country to run here and carping at each other about past or imagined grievances isn't going to get us anywhere.

More than that, we live in a big dangerous world full of people whose sense of grievance and entitlement far exceeds anything we can conjure up. Wringing our hands and lamenting "What did we do wrong?" doesn't help. Democrats don't want to face these problems. Instead, they'd rather lose themselves in primitive camp revivals, like that one in Minnesota that probably cost Walter Mondale the election.

Take a look at that election-night HBO documentary "Travels With George," made by Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of the likely Democratic House-Leader-to-be, Nancy Pelosi. In 90 minutes of trying to embarrass Bush, Alexandra Pelosi proves nothing except that she has no idea who the president is.

Bush doesn't speak her language or honor her shibboleths. Therefore he must be a bobble-head who wants to starve children, maim the environment and execute innocent prisoners just for fun. All Pelosi can do is put him through a catechism ("What about the homeless?"), then ignore his answers.

As the Chinese war manuals tell us, to deal with an "enemy" (as Pelosi calls Bush), you must first understand him.

Now I hear Democrats saying the Bush majority may self-destruct in some Nixonian fashion. Forget about it. The Republicans have a clear agenda. They're going to make America proud, strong and prosperous through the efforts of individuals. Trapped in their herd mentality, the Democrats will find it harder and harder to enlist new recruits.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2002