Rev. William Barber at the DNC

I was asked to discuss the Rev. William Barber's speech at the DNC, and so I shall.

He starts out saying many obvious things, although I find it funny when the crowd cheers for him, not realizing he is talking about the entire country, including Democrats too. It's a classic case of people seeing what they want to see.

His comment about "pay people what they deserve" got some cheers. Who decides what people "deserve"? First, people will not work for nothing unless they already have all their needs met, and maybe not even then. Inevitably, any pay has to cover their needs. Mind you, this isn't the "minimum wage" as legislated. Millions of illegal Mexicans are in this country working for sub-minimum wage, and are quite happy to be here doing so. The big question here is what do people deserve? And is it different for some people than others? My guess is the Democrats were hearing the rhetoric and missing the point.

Barber mentioned "share your food with the hungry...and then your nation shall be called a repairer of the breach." It is my understanding that there isn't really a hunger problem in the U.S. If anything, most of the poor here could stand to go on a diet. Visit a Wal-mart sometime and you will see.

Now if Barber is discussing hunger internationally, we have a problem: Our international "neighbors" run their own countries, and don't take kindly to us interfering with their internal affairs (even if they are crooked by our standards). Just as we wouldn't appreciate them interfering with us, it is only fair that we respect their desire to be left alone. There is a fine line to walk in assuming responsibility for another nation's people. We cannot just give them food or aid, because much of it doesn't make its way to the poor and hungry, getting intercepted by government forces instead. Hunger alone isn't the criteria to allow us to interfere in other countries, especially when military intervention would be required. How many is it ok to kill, in order to save how many others?

When Barber brings up tax policies which funnel prosperity to the wealthy few, he conveniently overlooks the poor who receive benefits, while the middle class picks up the tab for both. This is the ugly truth about the Democrats, but don't expect to hear it at their convention.

Instead, Barber fed the crowd a lot of candy ideas without much in the way of solid calories (aka real thought-worthy ideas). It was a pep rally for Democrats. He hit all the talking points without really stopping to discuss any of them.

Throughout the speech, Barber runs off a laundry list of perceived rights, none of which is mentioned in the Constitution, as well as Democratic Party causes, all justified in terms of "reviving the heart of our democracy". He does know the Founding Fathers would be appalled at that? But even if he ignores that, he needs to understand that it was a "democracy" that legislated Jim Crow and made blacks an institutional underclass? Even as Democrats cheer "democracy", it was the tyranny of the majority that kept the blacks down for a century after they were freed from slavery. This is an irony lost on most Democrats and blacks today, even as they cheer democracy. If the tyranny of the majority decides to put Donald Trump into the White House, will they still be cheering democracy then?