Finally, a Republican with some Integrity

[Lionel_Hutz]

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2...haney.0626.html

 

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.

I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal.

 

I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste. I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation. I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government. I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican.

 

My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

 

My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things.

 

Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation's future on three core issues: how we led the world on the environment, how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn't go bankrupt, and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world's stage as its only superpower. Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts. And we've done it in such a way that we shouldn't be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again.

 

My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming. We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we've chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.

 

We have mortgaged the country's fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we've simply changed the rules. I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do. But the party has yet to explain to me why it's a good thing now, other than to say "... because we say so."

 

Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower. This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.

 

Republican decisions made in 2002 and 2003 have killed almost 2,000 of the most capable patriots our country has to offer - volunteers, every one. Support for those decisions was gathered through what appeared at the time to be spin and marketing, but which now turns out to have been deliberate planning and falsehood. The Blair government's internal documentation only confirms what has been suspected for years: Americans are dying every day for Republican lies first crafted in 2002, expanded and embellished upon in 2003, and which continue to this day. This calculated deception is now burned into the legacy of the party, every bit as much as Reagan's triumph in the Cold War, or Nixon's disgrace over Watergate.

 

I could go on and on - about how we have compromised our international integrity by sanctioning torture, about how we are systematically dismantling the civil liberties that it took us two centuries to define and preserve, and about how we have substituted bullying, brinksmanship and "staying on message" for real political discourse - but those three issues are enough.

 

We're poisoning our planet through gluttony and ignorance.

 

We're teetering on the brink of self-inflicted insolvency.

 

We're selfishly and needlessly sacrificing the best of a generation.

 

And we're lying about it.

 

While it has compiled this record of failure and deception, the party which I'm leaving today has spent its time, energy and political capital trying to save Terri Schiavo, battling the threat of single-sex unions, fighting medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, manufacturing political crises over presidential nominees, and selling privatized Social Security to an America that isn't buying. We fiddle while Rome burns.

 

Enough is enough. I quit.

[Dechristo]

Idealistically, I find it counter-productive and inevitably hypocritical to the promotion of an individual's entire bank of beliefs to be affiliated and supportive of any one political party.

[Dechristo]

Giving money and power to the government is like giving whiskey and car keys to a teenage boy.

P.J. O'Rourke

[barjor]

Is it someone I have heard about? the link don't work

[graupel]

here is the full LINK

[catbirdseat]

James Chaney sure can write.

[Phil K]

Nice read, unfortunately this guy and a few million well-placed voters are about 8 months too late in waking up to the stink that the bushistas have put on the good'ol'USA. Oh wait that's right, they own the voting machines. I guess it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

[JoshK]

He nails it dead-on. *THIS* is my problem with the Republican party of today, not the differing views of what government should be of the previous 50 years. That was GOOD for the country as debate generally is. Today's politics is garbage. Like he said, we fight about junk issues like Terry Shaivo and Gay Marriage while the role of our country gets more and more twisted.

[archenemy]

What a joke. This guy is a loser who should go whine to Oprah. Before jumping in to agree with him, let's listen to what he is really saying.

 

 

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.

I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal.

 

I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste.

 

It is the power of the mind to create ideas, not the market. The market is where people sell their ideas. Already we can see that this guy puts the market above human individuality and ability.

 

I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation.

 

What? We need international vigilance to be sure that no one takes from us what we took from those before us? Why not take a look at what we're doing that is causing such hatred for us?

 

 

I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government.

 

Where does one apply for this protection? Every aspect of my life is influenced and taxed by the government.

 

I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican.

 

These "beliefs" are not a definition of a Republican. They are the basic rules of our Constitution.

 

My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

 

My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things.

 

He might want to read a couple of history books about this. People's History of the US and Lies My Teacher Told Me might be a good starting place.

 

Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation's future on three core issues:

how we led the world on the environment,

Led the world? We won't even sign the Kyoto Protocol. We lead the world in consuming the environment. Our economic models have not even included the environment in them.

 

how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn't go bankrupt,

 

Other countries are profiting from this, they really don't mind all that much.

 

and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world's stage as its only superpower.

Gracefully accepted? And whom did we "accept" this arrogant, forceful title from with poise and dignity?

 

Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts. And we've done it in such a way that we shouldn't be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again.

 

Newsflash: the American people never trusted government, that's how the idea of limiting its powers in the Constitution got "marketed".

Newsflash2: The world does not trust us--we have screwed them at every chance.

 

My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming. We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we've chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.

 

Don't worry, science won't be offered to students in the future, so this will be a non-issue as no one will be able to understand the logic and analysis required for scientific thinking.

 

We have mortgaged the country's fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we've simply changed the rules.

It's good to be king.

I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do.

This is not a belief created and owned by Republicans. It is what every consumer has to learn if they want to have a little spending cash.

But the party has yet to explain to me why it's a good thing now, other than to say "... because we say so."

In other words, he was actually waiting for an explaination from a government he doesn't trust on a topic he already understands to clarify a topic that is already perfectly obvious. This is the man who doesn't want the gov't to tell him how to think and live?

 

Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower. This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.

 

Gee, maybe it's tough to think of ourselves as a cooperative group that seeks consensus and cohesion when we lable ourselves as a superPOWER. Heck, he believes we are so powerful that we get to decide what the world needs. Sure, the words justice, democracy, compassion sound good. But from what I hear, what's really being said is justice to benefit us and support our cultural beliefs, democracy that we export and expect countries with no infrastructure or experience to adopt immediately (so we can get their raw materials and sell them crap they don't need with money we loan them), and Christian compassion (which works if your are a male WASP with no unseemly personal issues or a brain). And as for presenting the world with the truth, well, we don't have a very good track record of that. Just assuming that what we accept as fact is the truth for everyone is arrogant and ignorant.

 

Republican decisions made in 2002 and 2003 have killed almost 2,000 of the most capable patriots our country has to offer - volunteers, every one. Support for those decisions was gathered through what appeared at the time to be spin and marketing, but which now turns out to have been deliberate planning and falsehood. The Blair government's internal documentation only confirms what has been suspected for years: Americans are dying every day for Republican lies first crafted in 2002, expanded and embellished upon in 2003, and which continue to this day. This calculated deception is now burned into the legacy of the party, every bit as much as Reagan's triumph in the Cold War, or Nixon's disgrace over Watergate.

 

And people are shocked that Blair questioned our little war? Shouldn't EVERYONE question EVERY war? What do we expect--for other countries to blindly follow our gov't? No one should ever blindly follow the gov't. It's a shame that we superpower right over our allies to the point where they won't even tell our king he has no clothes on.

 

I could go on and on - about how we have compromised our international integrity by sanctioning torture, about how we are systematically dismantling the civil liberties that it took us two centuries to define and preserve, and about how we have substituted bullying, brinksmanship and "staying on message" for real political discourse - but those three issues are enough.

 

Here he is beginning to say something that people resonate with, but then stops himself. Why?

 

We're poisoning our planet through gluttony and ignorance.

 

We're teetering on the brink of self-inflicted insolvency.

 

We're selfishly and needlessly sacrificing the best of a generation.

 

And we're lying about it.

 

While it has compiled this record of failure and deception, the party which I'm leaving today has spent its time, energy and political capital trying to save Terri Schiavo, battling the threat of single-sex unions, fighting medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, manufacturing political crises over presidential nominees, and selling privatized Social Security to an America that isn't buying. We fiddle while Rome burns.

 

They are not fiddling. They are squeezing into every single aspect of our lives--when we die, who we fuck, what we smoke, how we survive.

 

Enough is enough. I quit.

And it only took him 25 years. But hey, nobody likes a quitter

[Dechristo]

"Doctor, this one doesn't seem to be accepting the mind control program."