Editor’s note: Michael Ackley’s columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
California’s new governor was introduced, in his first week on the job, to the “Blind Partisan’s Dictionary,” in particular the following entries:
Compromise – n. settlement of a dispute by an accord in which your opponent agrees he is wrong in return for your agreement that you are right.
Mandate – n. an electoral landslide that indicates voters either have (a) confirmed the wisdom of your convictions if you have won or (b) demonstrated their abysmal ignorance and lack of discernment if you have lost.
These definitions – embraced by the Democratic Party leadership nationally and locally – were acted out simultaneously in the Golden State’s Legislature as debate began over how to balance the budget and what to do about drivers’ licenses for illegal aliens.
In the first instance – because something like 130 percent of the recall ballots were cast for GOP candidates – Republicans, apparently believing they had something of a mandate, suggested changes that would lead the state out of the economic wilderness.
A Democratic legislator’s response: “They’re picking a fight with us.”
Then Gov. Schwarzenegger advanced his campaign promise to seek repeal of the bill granting illegal aliens the right to drivers’ licenses (with the ancillary benefit of the voting franchise) and the president pro tempore of the state Senate declared the move was “driven by racism.”
The pathological inability of the left wing to compromise – really compromise – on any issue it holds dear has led to electoral drubbings on initiatives such as Proposition 187 (banning state funded benefits to illegal aliens), Proposition 209 (banning affirmative action) and Proposition 227 (theoretically ending bilingual education).
Of these, 187 was blocked by a court ruling Gov. Gray Davis declined to appeal, and the latter two are widely cheated on – all cases demonstrating “mandate (b).”
With the left’s loss of administrative power, all three may be enforced – and added to – for Schwarzenegger already has said he will go over the head of the Legislature to the people.
Too much direct democracy is a dangerous thing, but our unbending ideologues, having lost the electoral argument, are asking for it.
Speaking of President Pro Tem John Burton: On the level of entertainment, it’s a shame this coprolaliac leader is being term-limited out of the state Senate before the rest of the country can get to know him. His profanity-laced diatribes long have been viewed with amusement by capitol observers – at least those not their targets.
We thought we were going to be treated to one of his outbursts on television the other day when a news anchor referred to illegal aliens as “illegal aliens.”
To this mean-spirited accuracy, Burton retorted, “undocumented PERSONS!” and launched into the left-wing liturgy: “these are human beings,” “they contribute to our economy,” etc., etc.
Alas, there was no swearing, and thus those who theorized that Burton suffered from Tourette’s syndrome may have been disappointed. His restraint showed his regular profanity was not distinguished “from simple swearing” and was not uttered in a “compulsive, repetitive, almost ritualistic manner even when the person is not angry.”
The man is definitely angry, and his profanity is intentional. With this in mind, let us suggest that he need not leave the public scene – indeed, he may gain a national or worldwide audience – when he leaves the Legislature at the end of next year.
If he learns to mix bad rhymes with his curses, he may have a career in hip-hop.
By the way, “mean-spirited” is in the Blind Partisan’s Dictionary:
mean-spirited – adj. a characterization applied to any inconvenient or uncomfortable truth that is at variance with your doctrine.
Perhaps, good readers, you have heard other oft-repeated words from true-believer officers, members and candidates of our political parties. If you will supply them to me, I will happily look them up in this specialized lexicon and share the definitions with you as the election season advances.
