For generations, the Democratic Party has struggled to
combine its two greatest flaws: high taxes and the nanny state. Why don’t the
laws that govern large objects like taxes apply on the subatomic
FCC-bleeping-out-?dick? level? How can Democrats create an equation that
perfectly embodies the relationship between all the elections they’ve thrown
away and their often idiotic legislation? Following years of painstaking
research, state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Waunakee, has discovered the unified
theory of everything: higher taxes on video games.

Politics is a game of perception, and even when they’re not
filming installments of their long running series, ?If you can’t beat us, we’ll
gladly fuck ourselves? (coming soon to a November ?08 near you), the left
struggles to frame issues even when they’re right. So long as the GOP claims
the low tax mantle, Democrats will primarily be a party on the defensive.
That’s not a value judgment, just reality.

Of course, the video game tax is absurd. From the
justification that because they are mostly bought by teens, they should fund
juvenile detention programs (the average gamer is 33 according to the
Entertainment Software Association) to the singling out of a generic
culture-wars foe that has nothing to do with crime rates.

The pressing question for Democrats is whether perceptions
like the one Mr. Erpenbach helps maintain makes their national platform a
liability. Consider the death tax, and the fact that we’re even calling it a
?death? tax. The estate tax helps maintain an American ideal ? that merit, and
not birth into a few privileged families, determines the distribution of
wealth. The Democratic Party has certainly lost the rhetorical battle over the
estate tax. And too many Americans living in conditions nowhere near eligible
for the tax support its repeal, fearing the loss of whatever they might offer
their children.

As the old cliche goes, all politics is local, and when
voters see Democrats grasp at straws for any justification to raise taxes, it?s
hard to blame them for being a bit cynical about the estate tax. Still, the
longstanding GOP policy of cutting taxes for the rich to stimulate the
corporate side of the economy can be turned on them in the upcoming election.
While Senate and House Democrats have made the distinction clear in recent
years, presidential candidates like John Kerry have muddied the message or run
away from it.

If the Democrats run into a moderate Republican come
November, their candidate must parry differences like these into broader
philosophical conflicts. But if history is any guide, they won?t, and too many
of our country?s poor will fear being slapped with a large tax when they die.

The left’s culture warriors

While the GOP’s moral police are well-known due to the
party’s highly publicized efforts to appeal to evangelicals ? unabashed
paternalism by Democrats puts them in the same league. The most unsettling
aspect of Democratic Party rule during the Clinton administration was the
embrace of more FCC regulation on TV, blaming violent video games for society?s
ills and a general scapegoating of media for poor parenting. Maybe we could
chalk that up to a lack of definitive studies on media effects during the ?90s,
but the Clintons have maintained their embrace of the philosophy.

Hillary Clinton’s responses to a Common Sense Media survey
suggest that in an age where the family unit seems weak, government can play
the role of parent. Industry self-regulation just won’t cut it.

No doubt, many rank-and-file Democrats didn’t think much of
getting sex off the airwaves or stopping the Mortal Kombat II video game from
poisoning our minds. But they went along with it, offering a seat at every
table to people who see no limits on the reach of government.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Liberals ought to think twice
before pointing fingers at the Bush administration for pandering to
Evangelicals. Of course, over-regulating pop culture and denying civil rights
to gay Americans is on a different moral scale, but Democrats have fallen
victim to the same kind of rationalizing: ?If we just throw some peanuts to
these moral crusaders, we can get enough votes to win.? Before Republicans knew
it, a fringe agenda became their platform, and that platform became handcuffs.

As much as many liberals lament it now, it must be understood
that the Democrats were complicit in the rise of the nanny state. If their next
president panders to the left’s culture-warriors, Democrats will face the abyss
that has swallowed the GOP platform.

Bassey Etim ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in
political science and journalism.