I don't criticize my Democratic friends as much as I do my Republican ones, primarily because they don't make as many bizarre assertions. They're pretty much up front about what they believe and what they want, and they tend to be too embarrassed to make intentionally spurious arguments.
One area where I do have a bone to pick with my Democratic friends involves some of the assumptions which they seem to make about humanity. One is that all people are equally intelligent and educable. This has serious policy ramifications. Given enough money and resources, any pupil can grow up to be, if not Stephen Hawking, then at least a Certified Public Accountant. Everybody should be able to get a college degree if they wish. The key to American prosperity is more technical training in order to tap into American ingenuity and permit every American to get a high tech job.
Where does this assumption come from? We all know from experience that some people are smarter than others and that intelligence and educability vary significantly from person to person. In recognizing this obvious fact, it is not necessary to make any statement about the hereditability of intelligence or the correlation of its distribution with other factors. We need to admit that a significant proportion of the population is unsuited for high tech work or higher education and that what is needed are good manufacturing jobs which permit persons with more limited intellecual endowments to earn a decent living. The current system simply treats such people as if they don't exist and exposes them to unwarranted stigmatization. My Democratic friends are left making unneeded apologies for poor people who have failed to respond to educational opportunities which are of no real use to them and who have simply been left behind in an economy that has shed its manufacturing foundation.
I'm not saying that all poor people are stupid, but I am saying that most stupid people are likely to end up poor in a society that doesn't take them into account. Even people of average intelligence are increasingly being left by the wayside as opportunities for them to get high wage jobs disappear.
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I think a big part of this stance is because structural critiques of the economy got lumped in as outright socialist. If how the economy is designed is a taboo subject, naturally all that's left to talk about is the people responding to it.
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