Sunday, May 17, 2009
RIP -- Republican Irrelevant Party?
I'm not a Democrat, whatever it may look like if you follow my posts from the past four years. I just knew before W. Bush got elected that he was dumb as a post, and I was so frustrated that I finally gave in to the urge to badmouth the man. Normally I don't badmouth a sitting President, because it's not a job you could give me. I think I'd move to Nepal before I took it, and I'm not kidding. So forgive me if I've seemed to lean Democrat the last few years. The attraction was that they weren't Bush. I swear, almost anyone would have been better than Kerry, but I voted for him because Bush isn't almost anyone, is he?
So anyhow, I'm amused to see that the Democrats, particularly Pelosi, are getting into hot water so deeply. Yee-haw, it goes on. But I'm more concerned about the Republicans, because there is almost nothing left of them. Idiots like Limbaugh talk about ideological purity or some such claptrap (and regular readers know what I think of high ideals.) Idealogical purity? What happened to the "party of the big tent?" You don't want anyone who disagrees with your little world view? That's pretty much what's wrong with idealism, in a nutshell. Unfortunately for the party, but fortunately for the rest of us, the inevitable destruction that rises from a position of pure idealism has been falling entirely on the Republicans. There are, I believe, two moderate Republicans left in Congress. And the core of the party wishes they'd convert like Specter did, or so they say.
Day was that I always split my ticket. Oh, sure, my first election I went Democrat because my parents were hard-core Republican, but that's no way to decide an election. I voted for Nixon, even, in my first Presidential election. I doubt that Nixon passes the purity test of the Ann Coulter wing either, by the way. Any more, though, I vote for Democrats because I can't stomach the holier than thou attitude of the group that took over, and seemingly destroyed, the Republican party beginning in the seventies. No, that's wrong. Those people are leaving as well, leaving the field to the, er, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, scaredy-cat, elbows who used to like to go to Klan meetings for fun. Maybe still do, even. That, I am sure, is not what the Republican party is all about.
Conservativism in America means liberalism applied in a corporate way. That's the way it's always been, from Hamilton and Adams right up to, and I do mean this, W. Bush. The "base" of the Republicans finally turned on W. because he was, well, being too Republican for them. Liberalism in America means liberalism applied to individuals, as in trying for equality and fairness. Those are the poles that America rotates on. To the rest of the world, we're all a bunch of raving liberals. I'm not kidding, we really are. To most people we are arguing over what it means to be liberal. To ourselves, of course, we are simply arguing.
The former cross-burning Dixiecrats who snuck into the party with the evangelicals now have the place to themselves, apparently. They surely don't like American Liberalism, because it has empowered a guy like Obama to be (gasp!) President. But they don't like traditional Conservativism either because business, and the Republicans, are after all the group that won the Civil War. Ouch, huh? That leaves those benighted souls with themselves. I guess they deserve it.
I hope that the Republican party survives, even thrives again. But honestly this time. It's not illegal to be a racist bigot on your own time, but those people are growing very tiresome and not worth the electricity to listen to.
They're worse than Democrats, and that's saying a whole lot.
Steve
So anyhow, I'm amused to see that the Democrats, particularly Pelosi, are getting into hot water so deeply. Yee-haw, it goes on. But I'm more concerned about the Republicans, because there is almost nothing left of them. Idiots like Limbaugh talk about ideological purity or some such claptrap (and regular readers know what I think of high ideals.) Idealogical purity? What happened to the "party of the big tent?" You don't want anyone who disagrees with your little world view? That's pretty much what's wrong with idealism, in a nutshell. Unfortunately for the party, but fortunately for the rest of us, the inevitable destruction that rises from a position of pure idealism has been falling entirely on the Republicans. There are, I believe, two moderate Republicans left in Congress. And the core of the party wishes they'd convert like Specter did, or so they say.
Day was that I always split my ticket. Oh, sure, my first election I went Democrat because my parents were hard-core Republican, but that's no way to decide an election. I voted for Nixon, even, in my first Presidential election. I doubt that Nixon passes the purity test of the Ann Coulter wing either, by the way. Any more, though, I vote for Democrats because I can't stomach the holier than thou attitude of the group that took over, and seemingly destroyed, the Republican party beginning in the seventies. No, that's wrong. Those people are leaving as well, leaving the field to the, er, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, scaredy-cat, elbows who used to like to go to Klan meetings for fun. Maybe still do, even. That, I am sure, is not what the Republican party is all about.
Conservativism in America means liberalism applied in a corporate way. That's the way it's always been, from Hamilton and Adams right up to, and I do mean this, W. Bush. The "base" of the Republicans finally turned on W. because he was, well, being too Republican for them. Liberalism in America means liberalism applied to individuals, as in trying for equality and fairness. Those are the poles that America rotates on. To the rest of the world, we're all a bunch of raving liberals. I'm not kidding, we really are. To most people we are arguing over what it means to be liberal. To ourselves, of course, we are simply arguing.
The former cross-burning Dixiecrats who snuck into the party with the evangelicals now have the place to themselves, apparently. They surely don't like American Liberalism, because it has empowered a guy like Obama to be (gasp!) President. But they don't like traditional Conservativism either because business, and the Republicans, are after all the group that won the Civil War. Ouch, huh? That leaves those benighted souls with themselves. I guess they deserve it.
I hope that the Republican party survives, even thrives again. But honestly this time. It's not illegal to be a racist bigot on your own time, but those people are growing very tiresome and not worth the electricity to listen to.
They're worse than Democrats, and that's saying a whole lot.
Steve
Labels: Politics, Social Commentary
