The Silence of the Lambs: Or, Why Democrats Lose

 

The meeting brought forth no surprises, only the expected behavior from those Mad Dog had come to know pretty well over the years.

The Hampton Democrats gathered 20 odd citizens, the usual suspects, to plow through the nuts and bolts of what passes for organization and planning and thinking of the local Party. 

There were long minutes spent talking about lawn signs, their value, the strategy of planting them on side streets, then moving them to busy intersections where signs can legally be planted as the election on March 9 draws nearer.

Mad Dog did learn something new, something he had always wondered about: when Democrats or Republicans gather to hold sign at the town's main intersection  (a dreary crossroads of Route 1 and Route 27, over arched by a jumble of thick power lines so ugly townspeople no longer even see them)  the sign holders often stand on the corner across from the Old Salt restaurant, but, it turns out, the Hampton police have informed the chairman of the local party, you cannot stand there legally, and have to keep moving, so if you want to stand, you have to move 500 feet down Route 1 toward the town gazebo.

Never knew that. 

The chairman announced that Democrats dominated the letters to the editor to the online edition (or it may have been the print edition--Mad Dog reads neither) of the Hampton Union and similar plans are being hatched to do the same for Seacoast Online. 

A video was played from a current octogenarian town councilor running for re election, a woman who refused to endorse the Hampton Democrat running for finance board,  because while a Democrat, this councilor  has a fondness for old friends who are Republicans or she has a fondness for simply landscaping for the town graveyards, which the town has done by cutting down ten 50 foot pine trees, leaving that part of Rte 27 denuded as a clear cut swath. 

 Out of a sense of  fairness, we listened to this octogenarian tell us that taxpayer money was routinely squandered and that no new buildings ought to be allowed in town ever again because the construction vehicles are noisy, destructive and unsightly, and nobody is offering to build this town councilor a new house any time soon. 

Warrant Article Tree Massacre at Graveyard

When 85 of the allotted 90 minutes for the meeting had elapsed, the chairman asked Mad Dog to present his thoughts on the warrant article (mentioned in the previous blog post) which allocates $65,000 from town coffers to the Sacred Heart school nestled on the grounds of the Miraculous Medal Catholic church. 

Mad Dog expostulated this payment from public funds to a religious institution violates the First Amendment, prima facia, and the Democrats should rise up in one mighty chorus and condemn it. 

Separation of church and state, don't you know?

Two lawyers present suggested since they are not constitutional scholars they could not offer an opinion about whether spending public governmental funds on a religious institution is in fact, unconstitutional, because, well, there are some laws which allow for it if the funds are for particular purposes. 

Mad Dog suggested you don't need to be a constitutional scholar to know an elision of church and state when you see it in the form of money getting deposited into a church account from a government account. 

The opinion of a town teacher of government was solicited and he opined the separation of church and state has never been absolute in America and the RSA laws which allow for government funds to be spent on private organizations for certain purposes have been endorsed by voters for years, by wide margins. He mentioned "shared bus routes" which Mad Dog took to mean that public school buses have been delivering town children to Sacred Heart for years.

Mad Dog did not have time or space to say that, yes, he understands in America we sometimes violate separation of church and state: we have a pledge which identifies our nation as nation "under God" and we have a chaplain of the United States Congress who often leads the Congress in prayer. And we have "In God We Trust" on our coins, but none of these things should actually be tolerated, and none of them involve spending taxpayer funds on a religious school, a wholly own subsidiary of a church.

Mad Dog was dying to tell the story about the time the Supreme Court directed the state of Texas to remove a nativity scene from the grounds of the state capitol and Anne Richards, then governor remarked, "It's a damn shame: It's the first time there ever were three wise men simultaneously present in Austin."

The purpose of this outlay of Hampton taxpayer funds is for a school nurse, for other non classroom activities Mad Dog was told. To which Mad Dog responded it doesn't matter if the funds provide for maintenance of flower beds, plowing of the parking lot; all that should be paid for by the Church, not the town.

View from Plaice Cove--Obadiah Youngblood

Several Democrats said for them the idea that public funds were handed over to non public schools was the problem, not the religious thing, which, if Democrats objected, would lose an entire Catholic vote. 

There you had it: fear of offending an interest group paralyzed these Democrats.

Do you think for a minute Republicans would shrink from saying what they thought was right for fear of losing votes? Mad Dog asked.

Practical objections were raised: Keeping those kids in Catholic school was cheaper than bringing them into the public schools where it cost $25,000 a year to educate them. To which Mad Dog said: So you would have argued, before school desegregation, it was cheaper to keep colored kids in colored schools and that was right?

Entirely Legal

Mad Dog could see he had a problem convincing this group to fight on principle: If only he had a poster child, a sympathetic face who would be harmed by government money spent on a religious school. He considered asking the group how they would feel if a madrassa opened in town and asked for dollars to educate its Muslim students.

In the end, no vote of support was taken. 

Mad Dog was told by several Democrats they would secretly vote against the warrant article but none would risk public exposure and the "blow back" that might bring. These Democrats would resist, but only if protected by the veil of secrecy, where they would offend no one. 

Only one stalwart said she would join Mad Dog's effort and she was no surprise at all: She is a Catholic, appalled to see town funds sent to Sacred Heart, and she  ever true to principle and never backs down from a fight and persists in all things. She is the heart and soul of the Democratic party in New Hampshire, but sadly, she is the rare exception. 

Unafraid to be Unpopular

But, in the end, the assembled Democrats advised Mad Dog if he was so worked up about it, to go to the ACLU and see if they would help him, but the Hampton Democrats were too fearful and in any case it was too close to the election.

Mad Dog muttered about "the fierce urgency of now" but Martin Luther King is not someone who resonated with this group.

So the group washed its hands of church/state separation, taking a stand on principle and adjourned, having heard all the committee reports about efforts at communication with the public, and Mad Dog wondered: What, exactly, do we, as Democrats have to communicate?"

As the line from Hamilton said: "If you stand for nothing, what do you fall for?"