Results vs. "isms"

I was re-reading an e-mail entitled "How To Be A Good Democrat" sent to me by a friend a while back. It was funny, seemed largely true along party lines & I got a good chuckle out of some of the 22 points.

As I went back through the list, one of them caught my eye:

14. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are
more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Thomas
Edison, and A.G. Bell.

For those of you who don't know, Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League & Gloria Steinem is a well-known feminist.

What really stopped me on this one is the "real" argument of the statement (as I see it). A.G Bell gave us inventions such as the telephone; Thomas Edison invented the phonograph & light bulb; Thomas Jefferson was, of course, president & the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence. These are very real & tangible things. Results, if you will.

The people listed above gave us ideas brought to fruition that improved our lives on different levels. One could easily argue that democracy is more valuable than the light bulb but I'm not talking magnitude here - just productive vs. non-productive efforts. We, as Americans, can see the great things these men have done for us every day we live.

Now, to the other side of the argument.

"Isms", such as those espoused by Gloria Steinem & the late Margaret Sanger do not produce results. This is not to say women don't deserve equal rights, nor is it to claim fighting for equality is a bad thing. It's simply to state that certain & prominent ideals in these ideologies stink because they have been hijacked & perverted by the standard-bearers. If "payback" is part of your agenda, your ideology is counter-productive.

Take socialism, for example. We have a system that says everyone shall enjoy equal conditions. Wow! Sign me up. That's a great thing, right? No matter how little effort I put in, I'm guaranteed to live at the same level as everyone else. Take that, free market!

Of course, we see how that's worked for Europe and the former Soviet Union: not so good. While a capitalist society will largely have the individual support themselves & a family - this is a motivating factor - the socialist society expects many individuals to prop up the whole as if they were a team. That would be great - if we were ants.

Or robots.

Which puts us at liberalism. The common mantra of the liberal is all about "good intentions". (Note to younger readers: "Bush lied" is a more recent catch phrase) I can't think of too many cases where liberalism has led to results. Oh sure, it gave us social security, but go over that "socialism" part up there to see where that goes.

Liberals apparently think that words, not deeds are all that is needed to enjoy success. It may be that way for them come election time but no one ever seems to win when all you have to show for a democrat congress is higher taxes, impotence and, of course, good intentions.