Blue Dog Reaganite

Mission Statement

Blue Dog Reaganite exists to preserve a political heritage that is in danger of being lost.

The Democratic Party of the New Deal—the one that produced five straight presidential wins, an enduring congressional majority and successfully oversaw the transformation of the U.S. economy from agrarian-based to industrial-based, with all the social safety net measures that necessarily entailed—was built on the backs of the ethnic Catholic vote, and then usurped by left-wing activists hostile to the values of those who built the mansion.

The backlash to extreme activism came in the form a Democrat who came of age in that New Deal era, saw the Left move in and immediately got out. That ex-Democrat was Ronald Reagan, who built up an enormous coalition, with the ethnic Catholic vote being the game-changer that made the coalition big enough to win the presidency.

The “Reagan Democrats” as they came to be called, produced 1980’s transformational election and set the stage for the Republican Party to ultimately retake Congress 14 years later. The Reagan presidency successfully vanquished the Soviet Union, won the Cold War and turned back the clock on the one big excess of the New Deal era, which was confiscatory tax rates that were as high as 70 percent when Reagan was sworn into office in 1981.

But the GOP coalition today is being defined and overrun by extreme libertarianism. Where Reagan was simply  skeptical about government’s salvific, the Right has moved in against the very idea of social safety net or human concerns themselves. History has repeated itself, as the ethnic Catholic vote is being made to feel uncomfortable in a mansion they helped build.

The Democratic Party of the early 20^th century and leading up to 1968 was the greatest political party this country was ever seen. Ronald Reagan was, if not the greatest president, at least the best of anyone whose last name isn’t Washington or Lincoln. The ethnic Catholic vote laid the groundwork for both, as sure as the Irish once laid the track for the railroads in the 19^th century. And that heritage deserves better than to be flooded under by Daily Kos commenters on the left or Ayn Rand lovers on the right.

Two examples will suffice for the introduction. No less an authority than Franklin D. Roosevelt, who crusaded for the rights of labor, drew a distinction between the employees of private companies and employees of the government when it came to collective bargaining rights. To draw that same distinction today gets you tarred as a right-wing extremist. No less an authority than Ronald Reagan said his efforts to trim federal spending,  devolve power to the states and eliminate abuses of the social justice system  in no way meant he wanted to deprive the poor of the assistance “the rest of us owed them.” (The Gipper’s own words in his autobiography An American Life and in line with the thought of his friend and Cold War ally Pope John Paul II).

The Democratic Party of old understood the balance that has to exist in labor relations.  Ronald Reagan understood the balance that has to exist in the relationship between a market economy and the government. The Daily Kos Left and the Ayn Rand Right understands neither, and it’s those forces that are the Establishment in today’s politics. Blue Dog Reaganite stands in opposition to both, and it stands for preserving and advancing our rightful political heritage.

If you vote Democratic and silently seethe that your party kowtows to Hollywood and Planned Parenthood, or if you vote Republican and are tired the extreme libertarianism, then I hope you can find some common ground here, regardless of whether you agree with my conclusions on who to vote for. The long-term changing of the political landscape—and the eventual nomination of candidates more in line with our values on either side of the aisle is more important than a short-term disagreement in a specific election.  If you’re tired of words like “racist” and “socialist” being tossed out so casually that they ‘vet lost all substantive meaning, then this site is for you. Above all, if you think we should be able to have a sense of humor this site is for you. Thanks for visiting.

 

What A Polish Martyr Can Teach Us In Today's Political Climate

Jerzy Popiełuszko was a Polish priest who was murdered in 1984 by the then-Communist regime of Poland, because the good cleric dared to speak out against the imposition of martial law. I believe the motivations behind the killing of Father Popieluszko, as well as how the Polish people responded, bear some noteworthy lessons for Americans today, in light of the recent scandals regarding the IRS targeting political appointees.

Let’s begin by drawing some appropriate distinctions, so left-wingers don’t go crazy. As bad as the Obama Administration acted in targeting Tea Party groups for audits, it does not get anywhere near the ballpark of murder. This is *not* a post warning about the imminent imposition of a police state in the good ‘ol USA.

Rather, what I think is noteworthy is that the Polish people of 1984 did not respond by crawling back into silence, as might have been expected of a people who had been under Communist suppression since 1945 and various other forms of outside control throughout most of their existence. The Polish people recognized the brutality for what it was—it was a sign of weakness, not strength and the regime believed that any criticism could turn into an avalanche. The events in Eastern Europe five years later proved that the Communists were right about one thing—they’d accurately read their own weakness.

In the wake of President Obama’s successful re-election campaign, we’ve been subjected to no shortage of analysis that have declared the liberal hour in American politics to be a permanent, irreversible new chapter in this country’s history. This is not unusual at all—the same people writing these commentaries today were writing the death knell of the political left after George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004 and brought increased Republican majorities in the House and Senate with him. Political punditry has a way of assuming that whatever happened in the most recent election, will continue to take place, always and forever.

Clearly, Obama and his top aides don’t share this view of their invulnerability and historical inevitability. If they truly believed the Tea Party resistance was just a bunch of kooks who were well outside the mainstream, the Administration would have left it alone. Instead we see a political leadership that’s imminently aware of its own weakness and has responded the same way Polish Communists did, albeit considerably more benignly—that’s to use power to suppress.

Obama and his strategists didn’t beat Hillary Clinton in 2008 and then win re-election in spite of declining approval ratings by being stupid or drinking the Kool-Aid they serve. They might well have noted that the same electorate that sent Obama back to the White House, re-elected a Republican House of Representatives. They might well have noted that in the states were referendums pertaining to ObamaCare were on the ballot, they lost. Obama has seen his own political weakness and he and his people are acting accordingly.

And the attempted bullying of the Tea Party should not silence, but embolden other Administration critics, just as the people of Poland were emboldened by the tragic murder of Father Popiełuszko. The good priest was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. May he pray for us all in these times.

The Bush-Obama Historical Corrollary

As the 2012 presidential campaign unfolded, I was often struck by the similarities of President Barack Obama, and his predecessor, President George W. Bush. While fervent partisans would ferociously pretend the similarities didn’t exist, it was difficult to deny the common bond they shared in tactics and even historical circumstance.

Consider the following…

*Each rose to power by pledging to be a different sort of president. While this is nothing new, Obama put a lot of emphasis on being the man of hope and change in 2008, while Bush emphasized he would return “dignity” to the White House—a none-too-veiled slap at outgoing President Bill Clinton.

*Each governed in a way that could be fairly described as having fidelity to principle and taking risk. When Bush was having difficulty securing authorization to invade Iraq, he went all-in during October 2002 and made it a focal point of the midterm elections. The Republicans swept to control of the Senate, increased power in the House and gave Bush what we wanted.

 With Obama, the circumstance was different, but the all-in was no less evident and it was on the issue of health care. After the special Senate election in Massachusetts resulted in an upset win for Republican Scott Brown, pledging to be the “41^st vote” against ObamaCare, the president hunkered down with his left-wing allies and decided on a new approach. They jammed health care through as part of a budget resolution, a parliamentary maneuver that ensured only a simple majority of 51, rather than a supermajority of 60 could win passage.

Agree or disagree, both presidents shoved all their chips onto the table and it was impossible for anyone to say there was a gray area about where they stood.

*Then we come to the campaign of 2012 itself. In both cases, the popularity of each man had suffered through his first term, in no small part due to the very decisions referenced above. The approval ratings suggested the American public was ready to make an employment change. But they also suggested that each man had enough credibility—not necessarily to make their own case, but to make the case that someone else would be even worse.

*In each case, the opposition party that helped the incumbent by nominating a wealthy patrician from Massachusetts, utterly out of touch with the ordinary voter. John Kerry and Mitt Romney were virtually indistinguishable in terms of their persona and public presentation. It was easy for Bush and Obama to come across as EveryMan by contrast. 

*In both cases, the challenger went through a stretch where they had to “go dark” on advertising and wait for federal matching funds to arrive in the summer prior to the election.  In each case, the incumbent hit hard on a point from the challenger’s past designed to attack at strength. Bush, with the Swiftboat Vets as his ally, hit Kerry on the legitimacy of his Vietnam War honors. Obama went after Romney’s record at Bain Capital. Whether it was the status as a war hero or one whose business know-how could fix the economy, Bush and Obama took a page out of the old Vince Lombardi playbook and attacked the strength of the opponent.

*In both cases, the president continued on to re-election by running an essentially negative campaign that boiled down to saying “the other guy’s worse.” And in each case the sense of the public that there was unfinished business—Bush with Iraq, Obama with the economy—led them to give the incumbent the benefit of the doubt.

We’re only four months into Obama’s second term, but the early results—legislative defeats, and serious public relations problems, starting with Benghazi, suggest that the historical corollaries might not be over.

When Selling Your Soul Doesn't Work

On the last day of April, Massachusetts Democrats chose Ed Markey as their candidate for the special U.S. Senate election to replace John Kerry, now that the latter is Secretary of State. Markey, a member of the House of Representatives, beat fellow House member Stephen Lynch by a tally of 57% to 43%. It’s an unremarkable result, but one that still hits home for me.

Lynch had been my favorite member of the U.S. Congress. An old-style Irish Democrat, he had a voting record that was pro-life and in economics he led up the defense of working people in the iron factories so prominent in his native South Boston. I was excited when he announced for the race. It was the chance to contest libertarianism, first against the radically pro-abortion Markey, then in the general election against Republicans.

Except Lynch did what so many Irish Catholic Democrats have in recent years and sold out. He firmly distanced himself from the pro-life cause—not just in rhetoric, which could be understood, but on policy. He made it clear he would not vote for any proposed Supreme Court justice who might overturn Roe vs. Wade. All that was left of his previous defense of human life was a position against federal funding of abortion.

Lynch was still a better candidate than Markey—being against federal funding is better than nothing, but given the path that Southie’s favorite son had taken, I no longer wanted him to win. Had Lynch captured the nomination it would have been seen as another example of how Catholic officeholders need to sell out before they can win higher office. In Lynch’s case, selling his soul didn’t work.

I’m not saying Lynch would have won the primary had he kept his pro-life stance—heck, maybe he’d have ended up with 25 percent instead of 43. But at least he would have kept his honor. And who knows, he might have been able to create a clear contrast with Markey and turn the race into an argument over what it meant to be a Democrat and use the power of government to defend the most vulnerable.  The people of Massachusetts already took the pro-life side in a state referendum last November on euthanasia, and they have more pro-life Democrats at the statehouse level than any other state. Again, who knows?

What we do know is that once Lynch blurred the contrast between himself and Markey, all the race was about was a battle for who could get more name recognition. Markey had the backing of the establishment and more money. His decisive win can hardly be seen as a shock.

Selling your soul is bad enough under any circumstances. When you get nothing for it, you simply look ridiculous. In this case, the teacher of the lesson is Stephen Lynch, but it’s a challenge all of us face every day.

Immigration Reform & Border Security

In the following post over at CatholicVote.org, I write about the immigration reform legislation through the eyes of the teachings of the Catholic Church, emphasizing that the need for upholding the law is also a component of Catholic social doctrine, as much as that is often overlooked. Read more...

Pope Francis & The Rise Of The Third World

The Catholic Church’s election of a new pope means a lot of things, the vast majority of which have nothing to do with politics. The Church has a loftier mission, with healing a broken world through the sacraments and the Gospel. But at the same time, March’s election of Pope Francis isn’t without political implications and I would like to touch on one of these particular here today.

A core reason for my identity as a conservative Democrat my belief in a protectionist trade policy. I believe a policy of lowering or wiping out tariffs has taken a heavy toll on the American sector, with its ultimate economic impact being the enrichment of stockholders who invest abroad, while lowering the standard of living for middle-class people. An argument often advanced on behalf of the trade agreements that I’m critical of is that they help the economies of the Third World, by tacitly encouraging firms to relocate there.

We now have our first pope from the Third World, and if it wasn’t before, the economies of the developing countries is now forefront on our agenda. Whether you believe, as I do, that the Holy Spirit is behind the election of a pope, or you simply believe that Francis is only the choice of 115 cardinals, it amounts to the same thing—the Catholic Church, as never before, is going to be visibly active in bringing the economic needs of the southern hemisphere to our attention.

I’m going to be the first to admit that Third World economic issues are not ones I have explored in great depth, and changing that is going to be a priority for me in this new pontificate. It’s my desire to be at the service of the pope, even in areas where his teaching is not covered by the doctrine of infallibility or binding on Catholics.

But the flip side is that there’s another doctrinal error in the Church and it’s called “papolatry”, which means to in effect turn the pope into an idol. Catholics believe the pope to be the custodian of divine truth and on rare occasions to be protected from error by the Holy Spirit. This last happened with John Paul II’s closing of the door on the women to the priesthood.

Lest this post turn into a lengthy discussion of Petrine doctrine, let me at long last get to the point. I’m open and willing to hearing alternative views on the global economy and if I become convinced that the changing my position on trade policy is a necessary component of social justice worldwide, I will do it. But though I’ve acknowledged my limitations on Third World economic knowledge, I’m not unfamiliar with the Church’s past teachings on the need to help those in the developing world. My reasons for maintaining a protectionist position when it comes to trade run thusly…

*Yes, open trade agreements encourage manufacturers to set up shop in the Third World. But that’s for the purpose of paying slave-level wages. I’ve heard it argued by Wall Street’s apologists that this is the first toward growing these economies to maturity—that once the plants are set up in the Third World, will eventually organize and get better wages and benefits, just as happened in the United States in the early 20^th century.

I would find that argument persuasive were it not teeming with hypocrisy. The very people who want to undercut private sector unions in the United States are now hailing them as a potential savior in Latin America and elsewhere. And furthermore, the argument that Third World workers might organize in the future is not a reason to exploit them today. All I see in these trade agreements is Latin American workers staying poor and United States’ employees joining them in a race to the bottom.

*John Paul II has written in the past, and presumably Pope Francis agrees, that the rich countries of the West will have to accept some sort of dislocation in order to allow the Third World to develop. Since a core of my argument against free trade is the dislocation it imposes on communities who rely on manufacturing, am I not at odds with a beloved former pope and now the new one?

It’s possible. I’ll also say that my belief is that the dislocation we currently suffer is that of working-class Americans getting poorer and stockholders in multi-national corporations getting richer. I find it hard to believe that John Paul was arguing in favor of an economic arrangement that made the upper classes in the United States grow richer, it’s working classes become more strapped, all the while paying slave wages to the Third World. Call me crazy, but I don’t think the former pontiff meant that, and that’s what I believe is transpiring.

Perhaps the years ahead will show me I’m wrong. Perhaps they’ll show the way to an alternative solution. Either way, Blue Dog Reaganite looks forward to a new era of focusing on the Third World and finding a way we all can share in prosperity.

 

A Voice Of Faith In The Jason Collins Coming Out

ESPN's NBA analyst Chris Broussard offered a thoughtful and faith-filled response to the news that Jason Collins has "come out" as the first openly gay player in American team sports. Read more...

Gun Control & Political Contradictions

It isn’t often that I get the chance to be squarely in the mainstream of public opinion, but apparently I was on a lot of the gun debate. The polls leading up to the recently failed Senate vote on a federal background check, said that the public was generally in favor of it. As am I. The polls since the failure indicate that there will be little, if any political repercussions for the senators who caused its demise—if anything, those who supported the background checks may be more at risk. Once again, I completely get why.

Let’s begin with why I embrace background checks as a point of general principle. I believe that it’s possible to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. While I have no illusions about the odds of success when it comes to criminals—the black market will always be there—it’s not like a mentally ill person is going to turn to his local gang leader if he’s denied the chance to buy a gun. I don’t believe this reasonable requirement infringes upon people’s constitutional rights. And as such, I’d like to see such a check become law.

But seemingly basic, straightforward ideas, get very complicated when you step into the demagogic world of gun politics. I’m fully aware that the background check I support would not have stopped Adam Lanza’s deadly rage at Newtown. Yet here were the parents of the dead children being trotted out as political props.

Furthermore, the legislation as written was vague on what constitutes being mentally ill? Does anyone who’s ever taken some medication to deal with a little depression fall under that category? Most people would say no, but the proposed law left such questions unclear. Should someone like me, who’s seen a therapist to deal with some personal issues lose their constitutional rights to own a gun? Perhaps a bad example, because I have no business ever being near a gun (and don’t own one), but in general, should such a person be classified as mentally ill? If you think so, stand up and say it, because the law that was proposed also left such questions vague and unanswered.

The Obama Administration and the most militant gun-control senators had two choices. They could have sat down with mental health professionals, worked these questions out and presented a well-honed and defined bill that would deal with the issues raised above. In short, they could do what they’re paid six-figure salaries to do.

Or they could try not doing their work, relying instead on demagoguery and parading out the Newtown parents in an effort to guilt everyone into just voting for whatever bill got slapped on the table, with a promise to figure out later. It no longer surprises me that this is the option that was chosen, but it’s no less disappointing. And it’s also why I was happy to see a bill that I support in general theory, be defeated on the Senate floor.

I don’t claim that my rationale as the same as everybody’s, but that’s just one piece of the explanation of how one person can support an idea in principle, yet be more ready to take it out on the supporters of the law. The polling data suggests I’m not alone.

Why The Democratic Party Still Matters

“How did things come so far? It was all so unfortunate, so unnecessary. Tattaglia lost a son. I lost a son.”
--Vito Corleone, The Godfather.

The words spoken by Don Vito Corleone in the classic 1972 movie where he meets with the other heads of the Five Families to end a mob war might well apply to the situation with the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party.  Ethnic Catholics, fresh off the boat in the 1920s, signed up en masse with the Democrats and helped give the party an enduring coalition that held Congress for over forty years. Nor were these Catholics who dissented from their Church. The Democratic Party of FDR, Truman and JFK rode to victory with the indispensable help of rosary-reciting Catholics with pictures of the pope up in their living rooms. They gave Democrats their votes, and the party in return led the way in building a social safety net that helped cushion the ups and downs the come with a dynamic capitalist economy.

Thus we come to last week when the tensions, building for over forty more years now finally boiled over. The Catholic Church in the United States filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration over the requirement in the new health care law that says insurance plans covering employees in religious organizations must include artificial contraceptives. At worst, it’s a violation of the Church’s constitutional right not to cover services that contradict its beliefs. At best, it’s a display of bullying by the president and his corporate backers at Planned Parenthood, Hollywood and Wall Street liberals who believe the country is overpopulated anyway.

The unanimity among the Catholic bishops in opposition to the law is shocking to anyone who’s paid attention to the Church hierarchy since the late 1960s. There’s almost always several vocal dissident voices among the bishops. But the firmness with which the U.S. hierarchy has responded will almost surely cut into President Obama’s share of the Catholic vote this fall. Furthermore, the votes likely to be peeled off are in blue-collar ethnic communities that can tip the balance in a state like Ohio, which can in turn tip the presidency to Mitt Romney.

Now the question becomes whether the merger between the Catholic vote and the Democratic Party will effectively come to an end, with a new era beginning of the Republicans consistently holding this voting bloc. I can’t argue that such an ending isn’t justified. The radical left wing that holds a chokehold on the Democratic nominating process has been more anti-Catholic than any political movement since the days Herbert Hoover’s campaign charged that Democratic presidential nominee Al Smith wanted to build a tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean so the pope could more easily travel back and forth to the United States. If the Radical Left continues to hold sway in the party, then some of us have no choice but to continue to seek refuge with the GOP while in exile.

But I’m not ready to concede that this is the way to go. The Democratic Party remains the best hope for some type of reasonable regulation of the global economy—indeed the same capitalist dynamics that created the need for the New Deal has been exported globally. And while that creates plenty of economic opportunity, it also means the need for some type of regulations on outsourcing and shipping jobs overseas need to be in place. A Republican Party heavily aligned with Wall Street is not going to provide that, and even at the rank and file, it’s neo-conservative rank-and-file do not even desire it.  On the domestic front, while the grassroots of the GOP has produced excellent ideas in reforming health care, it’s fair to say that it was the persistent of the national Democratic Party—including those of the extreme Left that I castigate—that kept it at the forefront of public discussion. It would be nice if the good ideas of GOP congressman Paul Ryan were pushed by his party without the Democrats keeping the topics alive. Left to their own devices, it’s hard to say what—if anything—the GOP leadership would ever talk about.

Economic regulation is a gray area and under no circumstances would the possibility of some common ground there with the Democrats be enough to justify an alliance with a hate-filled political movement that’s repeatedly trashed Holy Mother Church and is more interested in getting middle-class Catholics to finance the lifestyles of suburban liberals, as evidenced by the battle to force required coverage of artificial contraception. But the prospective common ground is enough of a reason not to throw in the towel on the Democrats…so long as there’s a reasonable chance at a turnaround.

Therein lies the rub. In conversations with conservative Catholic friends, I’ll get told two things. The first that I’m already something close to a socialist just because I don’t think the marketplace is an idol. The second is that even if they sympathized with my economic views, it’s pointless to even look at the Democrats, because they’ll never nominate anyone who’s pro-life.

The latter statement is only true to the extent that those with Democratic sympathies accept them. How many rank-and-file Democrats secretly seethe at being pushed around by Michael Moore and George Soros? How many Catholics in exile with the Republicans are secretly kind of uncomfortable with the free-market purity of party orthodoxy that treats even the mildest attempts to stabilize the market as being pseudo-Marxist? What if these two groups combined and backed a single candidate in a party primary, at any level? Why couldn’t that candidate win a Democratic primary, be it for House, Senate or even the presidency?

There’s no reason such a candidate couldn’t win. It’s just a question of how badly the voting blocs with the most at stake want it to happen. Because the longer the Silently Seething Democrats and the Republicans In Exile fight with each other, the more it emboldens a system run by Planned Parenthood on one side and Wall Street on the other. That’s why we can’t quit on the Democratic Party, even if it’s current leadership has quit on us.

The Teachers & The Troops

One of the countless distasteful aspects of politics is the constant effort by candidates, organizations and just plain everyday activists to constantly be co-opting good and noble causes as their own. There’s nothing more noble than dedicating one’s life to service of one’s country in the military. On the same note, choosing to be a teacher is service at the highest level. Yet each profession has become a tool of our respective political parties to promote their own interests.

The Democratic Party is heavily invested into keeping the elite leadership of the teachers’ unions happy, the better to get money and ground volunteers flowing into their campaigns. Therefore, even the mildest efforts to discuss reforming the education system—including fair treatment for parents who want the same choices families like the Obamas and Kennedys have to send their kids to private schools—is immediately dressed up as an “attack on teachers.” Even efforts like we currently have in Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker has suggested that teachers can pay a portion of their health insurance costs—like those of us who make a lot less money and don’t get three months a year off—are painted into a wholesale attack of the idea of teaching itself. I’ve reached the point where when a Democrat talks about “teachers” or “the children”, I just tune out.

The Republican Party has become the favored party of military families in recent elections and even though I suspect if we could find out the political affiliation of the troops whose names are engraved on the various walls in D.C., there’d be more Democrats than Republicans, it hasn’t stopped the GOP from milking the “it’s for the troops” line. In the run-up to the Iraq War, anyone who raised dissent (I was one) was treated as though they were hostile to the nobility of the soldiers themselves. Any suggestion that foreign policy is being mishandled or mismanaged—at least if the suggestion during a Republican administration quickly is twisted into a discussion about the troops rather than those making the policy. I’ve reached the point where if a Republican talks about “doing it for the troops”, it’s time to tune out.

If an idea is good it can stand on its own merits. It doesn’t require the constant manipulation and exploitation of others. The fact that the Democrats have made the teachers their shield and the Republicans the troops, tells us more about the people making the arguments than about those they hide behind.

The Dropkick Murphys, Tim Thomas & When Politics Goes To Far

I might be a native Milwaukeean who subsequently spent 13 years living in the AFC North (Pittsburgh & Baltimore), but Boston is my adopted city. I love its Irish heritage, its sports heritage and its political heritage. And my favorite city seems to be repeatedly in the news when it comes to clashes between the political world and that of popular entertainment. Two examples this year come to mind…

*In January, Boston Bruins’ goalie Tim Thomas, the hero of his team’s Stanley Cup run the previous June declined an invitation to join the rest of his team at the White House. Thomas then followed it up with a pointed statement saying that the Obama Administration was a threat to the freedoms America was built on and he had no desire to be a part of the White House trip. What’s always been a harmless and traditional way of sports teams being honored was suddenly politicized.

*Now this past week here in Wisconsin, a Republican Senate candidate played the opening of the song “Shipping Up To Boston” by The Dropkick Murphys, as his walk-on music at the state GOP convention (If you haven’t heard the song, the opening has a rhythm and beat that makes it ideal to walk out to, whether you’re a political candidate, or former Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon, who used it as his own music when he came out of the bullpen). The Dropkick Murphys, a group who has a close affiliation with the AFL-CIO went ballistic and Fitzgerald said he wouldn’t use the song anymore. Suddenly something as harmless as music that’s in the public square for all to enjoy was politicized.

Is this really necessary? At what point did we decide that anyone who disagrees with you politically needs to be treated like an outcast? Thomas and the Dropkick Murphys are both certainly well within their rights to make their views known and to handle things exactly as they did. But is it healthy? Is it a mark of a mature society that treats the human person as though he/she is solely a political being?

I’m not a political supporter of President Obama, but I’d have gladly gone to the White House if I were the Double T. There’s no evidence the president is an awful human being—he’s got a good nature, shares some common interests with me in sports and if nothing else, I don’t believe he mischaracterizes the views of his opposition—at least I’ve never read a quote by him that’s set me off. Many that I disagree with, but nothing that makes me feel as though he’s playing the demagogue. If only the same could be said for his more fervent supporters.

As for The Dropkick Murphys—you know I’ve dabbled into popular culture as well, as the novel showcased at the top of the blog indicates. Of course I’ve had nowhere near the financial success of the band from Massachusetts, but the point is that I understand what it means to create a piece of art from scratch. And I hate to break it to them, but the day you make it for sale in the public square, it’s up the buyer how they want to use it. You can either have the music or you can have the royalties, and if you don’t want people of a differing political philosophy to enjoy it and use it, then just play in your basement. It’s ironic that the DKM’s are playing the role of the heavy-handed business owner regarding their product, when they should be appreciative of the fact they’ve created something special that all people can enjoy.

Tim Thomas is a great goaltender and those of us who love the Bruins enjoy watching him use his skills. The Dropkick Murphys have musical talent that can lift the human heart. It’s one thing to have political views and express them, but don’t let gifts like that be prostituted—and that’s the appropriate team—into a sword against anyone who doesn’t toe your line.