If you want to gain greater insight into the mindset of much of Hillary Clinton's base — the type of people she caters to, and will continue to cater to if she is elected — you should familiarize yourselves with a couple of recent news stories involving the Boy Scouts and our troops.
In Philadelphia, the glorious city where our unique experiment in constitutional governance began, the city solicitor issued the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts Council a dire ultimatum. Unless it renounces its policy excluding homosexuals by Dec. 3, it will forfeit the right to rent from the city a building it has rented for $1 a year since 1928.
Solicitor Romulo Diaz said, "While we respect the right of the Boy Scouts to prohibit participation in its activities by homosexuals, we will not subsidize that discrimination by passing on the costs to the people of Philadelphia."
The solicitor apparently doesn't care that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Scouts have a right to exclude homosexuals or that Congress passed a law two years ago — the Support Our Scouts Act — to restrict the right of cities to deny Scouts access to public facilities because of their policy.
Gay-rights advocates often insist on rights going one way: their way. They demand that homosexuals be permitted "the right" to join the Scouts, though it would deny this private organization its constitutional right of free association and what values it chooses to uphold.
Meanwhile, Cambridge, Mass., the proud home of Harvard University, fired a shot at both the Boy Scouts and the United States armed forces. The city put the kibosh on Cambridge Troop 45's innocuous Election Day drive to collect care packages for American soldiers in Iraq because it was "political."
The Scouts had placed donation boxes at the city's 33 polling stations, hoping to receive donations of toiletries, magazines, candy and other goodies to send to our troops in Iraq. Scout Patrick O'Connor, whose relative was injured in an IED explosion in Iraq, devised the plan to "make a lot of troops happy."
But some obviously not so happy or compassionate liberal complained that the donation boxes were a "political statement," which resulted in their removal.
O'Connor said he "was devastated that someone would" remove the boxes. Troop committee chairman Jamisean Patterson said, "This was not supporting the war or any politician or political view. This was supporting the brave men and women who are stationed overseas."
For years, we have listened to the left's preposterous and counterintuitive argument that they support the troops while opposing their mission in Iraq and lauding Democratic politicians who brand them as losers, torturers and rapists, and murderers of "hundreds of thousands" of innocent Iraqi civilians.
We've watched with incredulity and disgust as certain celebrated congressional representatives maliciously and wrongly pronounced Marines guilty of murdering Iraqis before any evidence was presented. We've endured the left's venerated senators recklessly comparing Guantanamo prison to the Soviet Gulags and indicting our entire military for the renegade acts of few in humiliating enemy prisoners at Abu Ghraib, saying Saddam's prison was open under new management.
Liberals are always complaining about President Bush and other Republicans "politicizing the war." But only liberals could think that sending care packages to soldiers putting their lives on the lives for our freedom is a political statement.
Only leftist journalists could think that wearing a flag lapel pin is an unacceptable statement of bias. Only they could think that outward expressions of love of country during time of war has political connotations and compromises their professionalism.
They can only view it in political terms, through their perverse antiwar lenses. I dare say the overwhelming majority of Americans would think that such demonstrations of support for America should be instinctive, uncontroversial and unquestionable.
Sadly, many of these antiwar leftists can't separate their rabid political opposition to the war from the humane and decent provision of comfort and supplies to our troops. Trust me: Many of them have contempt for the troops because they are the agents who are implementing the tasks and missions they hate.
Depending on what audiences they're in front of, Democrats will doubtlessly tell you that the actions against the Boy Scouts and troops detailed here are only supported by fringe elements in their party, but you know better. These are just a few examples that illustrate the kind of constituencies to which Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democrats pander and the kind of America they would try to achieve if they regain power of the executive branch.
If they're not afraid to target the Boy Scouts and our brave soldiers, apple pie better be keeping a sharp eye.
