The DNC in a Rut

I was struck, driving to work this morning, at how incredibly old-school the Democratic Convention was last night. The topics were old-school topics; the attitude old-school belligerence.

The Republicans were old-school too. The difference is like the difference in music between the conventions. Republicans don't pretend to be anything other than Mom, Apple Pie, and Country Music. Okay. I can hate that imagery or love it, but it is what it is.

But the DNC wants me to believe it is vibrant and new and cutting edge when it isn't so much. All these tired old topics from the 1980s before the workplace completely changed, pushing the service industry (and women) to the forefront. The same shrieks about abortion before medical advances made the fetus a much more viable reality than ever before (you can do freakin' surgery on a fetus now!). The same insistence on women being protected by Big Daddy. The same unrelenting commitment to entities like Head Start which have not completely proven their effectiveness.

It's strange. Haven't these people read ANY papers or books about women in the workplace, medical advancements, or education in the past twenty plus years? Should the same issues really still be discussed in exactly the same way?

Of course, as a libertarian, I just want the government to pave roads, fund education (in a variety of forms), leave me alone when I cross state lines, and stop terrorists. Everything else (okay, almost everything else) can be taken care of at the state level.

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