From a complaint about Senator Pedro Espada, seeking to have has membership in the Democratic Party revoked. “Sen. Espada’s decision to affiliate with the Democrats is the result of opportunism and personal gain, not a commitment to Democratic ideals.” Of course. But does New York’s Democratic Party actually have ideals? And aren’t all the state legislators basically backed by those whose primary interest is personal gain? Isn’t that who is contributing to their campaigns, and collecting their signatures? Can’t the same be said of the Republicans?
My preference is to work backwards. Add up what is actually done, and attempt to infer the ideals from that. The ideals I get are personal gain, and the collective gain of Generation Greed, aside from a few symbolic social issues. “Quite clearly, Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. left the Democratic Party long ago in all but his official party affiliation. Through his repeated public statements and bad conduct, Sen. Espada has shown he is not ‘in sympathy’ with our party’s fundamental principles,” according to the letter that is circulating in the news. But the letter doesn’t list such principles. If it did, it would probably be easy to show they should all be thrown out.
I’m not objecting to compromise. I’m objecting to not having any principles at all, other than more for our crowd at the expense of everyone else, payable in the future. Is that the fundamental principle of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, or both? Working backward, it is both.