Posted by
Jabra on Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:08:44 PM
This legislation and its like is what will lose Republicans an election after election time after time. The fact that a Mississippi Republican introduced such a distasteful bill should come as no surprise as the Republican party has become the party of small government and free people in name only. Those who are talking of 'party unity' and moving the party forward are either dumb or they seriously don't recognize that the party is over. Most Republicans now qualify as right wing Democrats at best.
Like the Whig Party in 1854 the Republican Party is in the death throes. If you look at many of the states considered Republican strongholds you will find nothing but high taxes (higher than the national average) and big governments expanding as fast as they can squeeze dollars out of hard working middle class people. My State of Utah is one example of such state, dominated by Republicans at every level yet have one of the highest tax rates in the nation and expanding government (local and state). If I was asked to identify how the Republican Party today differs from the Democratic party I would say that it is the party of bigger government (bigger government bureaucracies in the form of defense and homeland security), exclusive and uneven supply-side (voodoo economics) tax cuts (to the Rich mostly) and anti-abortion.
While I am for strong defense and homeland security, one has to wonder if the massive bureaucracies at the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense are the way to have more security, especially if we look how poorly paid our soldiers and people on the front lines are. Even with the benefits they get, the soldiers and warriors who put their lives on the line are poorly paid. One has to wonder if our security and defense tax dollars are put to their best use when the FBI has only one agent who speaks Arabic or Farsi at the required levels and our State Department has a severe lack in Middle Eastern language experts.Candidate Romney, a businessman who knows well the power of the markets, fairs no better in his support for bigger government. While I agree with his idea of re-engineering the government, his proposal for a 'universal health care' system would result in bigger government bureaucracy as it did in Massachusetts. It would definitely result in an even bigger one in the country.
Republican conservatives know what to do to reduce taxes. They know
that a reasonable and flat tax is the way to raise money for a smaller
government and prosperity but none of the candidates, with the
exception of Ron Paul, is willing to propose such a thing. They will not do so because all of them know that this is the way to keep government in control of the social engineering of our lives.
As to abortion rights and 'family values' we don't really know where many Republican politicians stand. The situation in this year's presidential primaries is the best evidence. Many of the candidates were or are pro abortion. Indeed some profusely denied being pro abortion and others tactically avoided the issue but it makes you really wonder. Then you have McCain. Do you really want to trust someone who left the wife who took care of his family during his POW years, for someone who is 17 years his junior. What kind of family values is that?
In summary, the Republican party is over. I don't see the situation becoming any better though because the great majority in this country want government to run one aspect or another of their lives. The people who still appreciate liberty and freedom are getting fewer ad fewer. We have to thank a 'liberal and progressive' educational system run by unions for that. If you judge by the numbers of people voting for Ron Paul (the only true candidate for liberty this season) I would say that only 5-6% of us still believe in freedom.
The obesity law I referred you to earlier sounds like one of the surreal scenes from Ayn Rand's immortal novel 'Atlas Shrugged'. Very soon we will have the nut job environmentalists resurrecting the idea from 1867 that obesity is caused by warm climate and linking obesity legislation to global warming legislation. I would not be surprised if that nut job was a Republican!