The Audacity of Doing One's Job

Sorry it's been slow here. Other projects going on, vacations, etc. So yeah. Kinda slow for a bit.

This cracked me up, though. Apparently, the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign thinks that some comments Barack Obama made to a meeting of Democratic congressional leaders was an obscene display of arrogance. Obama said that his campaign had "become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." The RNC circulated this comment under the heading "Barack Obama Audacity Watch."

So, according to the RNC and McCain campaigns, a politician actually trying to improve America and not being afraid to lay claim to that goal is just arrogant. Not, you know, doing what he was elected to do.

Armchair Mudslingers

Apparently, not only is the National Republican Congressional Committee unable to support elections with ideas, plans, or platforms, but they're not even able to do their own name-calling anymore. They've outsourced their smear production to the public at large. I can see why, too. Check out this video they produced.

Really? The best they can do is point out that the Democratic Congress has low poll ratings? While undoubtedly true, they went on for two minutes and thirty-nine seconds of filler material, but conveniently fail to mention that those drops in satisfaction are based on Congress's apparent inability to change the policies instituted by the Republicans, and by far the biggest issue is the Iraq War. Americans increasingly want an exit strategy, and the Democrats haven't delivered. This is hardly a selling point for the Republican Party, however.

The current slogan over at the NRCC is "Rediscover Your Party". If the party is accurately represented by the NRCC, as someone who was a registered Republican for eleven years I'd rather not, thanks.

On Ron Paul

During a conversation about politics, I was recently informed that I should... nay, must support the presidential candidacy of Ron Paul. If I am what I claim to be, that being an ex-Republican who abandoned his party due to the waste, hypocrisy and anti-intellectualism of the Bush administration and the current RNC, then I must support the man who wants to bring the party back to what it is meant to be. And frankly, I see his point. If I were going to vote for a Republican, I would vote for Ron Paul. No doubt about it. I'll even go so far as to say that Ron Paul is a slightly more attractive candidate than Hillary Clinton. But he's not going to win my support, and maybe that means I've changed in my political philosophies.

Ron Paul is right about Iraq. He's right about the (very limited) role government should play in the personal lives of citizens. He's right about 'free' trade. He's taken stands against the conservative juggernaut that even the Democrats haven't dared to take, and good on him for it.

These are the reasons I will not support Ron Paul:

1) He's adamantly anti-abortion. In all cases. On his website, he even insinuates that abortions are never required to save the life of a mother:

In 40 years of medical practice, I never once considered performing an abortion, nor did I ever find abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.
- www.ronpaul2008.com

Setting aside for the moment that his anti-abortion stance flies pretty hard in the face of his libertarian platform, this kind of statement is just plain misleading and irresponsible. Regardless, like ever other 'pro-life' candidate, I've not heard him offer a socially responsible alternative. Who does Ron Paul believe should be raising the 45 million unwanted children he seems to feel were wrongly destroyed? The government, at the expense of taxpayers? Not the kind of thing that would fit in with his platform. Like everyone else on that side of the fence, he rails against abortion, but fails to account for the impact of millions of unwanted pregnancies brought to term on a nation already neglectful of its children.

2) He's anti-tax. There's a big difference between anti-tax and anti-waste. I would wholeheartedly get behind a candidate who championed waste reduction. But Ron Paul, like too many extremist libertarians, promotes the irresponsible notion that taxes are inherently bad. In a capitalist nation, the administration of government will require revenue in the form of taxes. Not only does everyone pay taxes, but everyone, to some degree, partakes in the benefits brought about by those taxes. Making taxes out to be the problem is nonsense. The problem is out-of-control waste, pork-barrel politics and a citizenry that refuses to make sacrifices but expects everyone else to.

3) He's pro-corporation. I'm a capitalist. I believe in the benefits of a free market. But Americans have been brainwashed into believing that being pro-capitalism means also being pro-corporation. This is as ridiculous as claiming that being pro-socialism means also being pro-fascism. Individuals should be free to run a business, but that business should not be allowed to become more important than any individual. Corporations in America have more rights than citizens. Corporations determine which of us may receive required health care, what news will be presented to us and what news will not, and to a large extent, who we get to vote for in national elections. This is a free-market perverted. When what is best for the bottom line clashes with what is best for the people, the people should win. As it stands, they usually do not. Free-market economics requires some moderation. Ignoring this fact is creating a plutocracy.

4) He's anti-health care. I'm sorry, but that's how I'm labeling any candidate who opposes universal health care. For a guy who is terribly concerned with all the children who remain unborn due to abortion, his concern seems to slacken once children actually make thier way out of the uterus. More than eight million children in America have no health coverage at all. Yet Ron Paul says:

Americans are justifiably concerned over the government’s escalating intervention into their freedom to choose what they eat and how they take care of their health.
- www.ronpaul2008.com

Actually, Ron, I'm far more concerned with the people who have no freedom to choose because they've been left with no choice. They can not afford care, and so the only choice they have is to be sick and die. And when one considers that our health care industry is 25% as financially efficient as nations with universal health care, I'm simply not going to by the baseless assertion that universal health care systems are inefficient and more expensive. Americans seem to think that our health care system is the best in the world. In fact, statistically we rank toward the very bottom of the industrialized world. In 2004, the infant mortality rate in the United States was not only more than double that of nations like Sweden and Finland, but was also higher than countries whose health care systems we might be tempted to ridicule, including Cuba and Slovakia.

Let me repeat: There are more than eight million children in America with no health coverage at all. This is a crime and we should be ashamed as a nation. Any candidate who refuses to realistically address this problem is anti-health care.


So that about covers it. I am not endorsing Ron Paul for president. My support continues to be for John Edwards, who while far from perfect, is the only candidate willing to face down the corporations and the institutions that perpetuate economic apartheid in America. (Now, John, just please get your head out of your ass about gay marriage, m'kay?)

I do hope that Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination, however. He's the only Republican candidate whose victory would not fill me with complete horror and dread.

Rush Limbaugh Admits He's a Shill

I couldn't make this up if I tried.



That's not satire. That's not a parody. That is actually right off the Rush Limbaugh website.

He's not even softening the corners. He admits he's been carrying the Republicans' water, and he says he did it despite not really supporting anything they stood for. Why did he do it? Because the "stakes are high." He's not kidding. His income is definitely high stakes.

"My friends, I know I haven't demonstrated so much as a tablespoon of integrity in the past six years. I've been supporting terrible Republicans and terrible people, politicians who live by the very principles of nepotism, corruption and fiscal irresponsibility that I railed against the Democrats for. I convinced all of you to support them too, for as long as I could. But now many, many of you have woken up, so I say to you, I am liberated. I am liberated from having to support these people. They let us down. They let you down by being corrupt, and they let me down by losing the election. So now, let's pick up the pieces. Let's pretend the last six years never happened. Let's pretend I have any sense of pride or shame. Let's get back to the Clinton bashing."

What a tool.

Anyway, yeah, this is my first post after the elections. Why? Because I'm still not sure how I feel. Yes, I'm happy that the NeoCon Republicans have gotten a swift backhand from the American voter. I'm thrilled that Americans have finally decided to be more concerned with corruption from within than some shadowy, vague threat of destruction from without. But what does it mean? I'm not really a Democrat. I support them because they're opposed to the policies that have made me abandon my party, but I don't quite feel like one of them. I expect a lot from them, and I'm just not sure I feel that confidant that they'll deliver. We'll see.

I'm happy. I really am. But I want to see the investigation begin pronto. Bipartisanship is great. Let's work together. But you better believe I expect thorough investigations into this occupation and the mismanagement and theft of reconstruction funds. If, and I repeat, IF, the details warrant impeachment, I expect it to happen. Period. We impeached the last guy for lying about an affair. This administration has the blood of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians on his hands. I do not want to see the Democrats shying away from their oversight duty for political reasons.

Sorry. Like I said, I'm happy. But, as a good friend of mine so eloquently put it today, "this shit ain't over." Yesterday made improvement possible, but not guaranteed. Not by a mile.

Summing It Up

A quicker, easier, more timely answer: Why do I no longer support the Republican party?

I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years. This Pentagon and our military needs a transformation and I think Donald Rumsfeld is the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, has enough experience to help transform that institution. - House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), 10/29/06

Because the Republican Leadership is fucking delusional.

Justification

Random Annoying Person via e-mail: If you were a REAL Republican, you'd still support the party. You're just jumping off the ship because it's popular now.

Me: Bullshit. Here's why.

1) I didn't just jump the ship. I supported this administration through the effort in Afghanistan, but dropped all support the minute we abandoned that critical effort to engage in an unneccessary, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. That was years ago. I have been actively blogging my anti-NeoCon opinions since August of 2005. My previous blog pretty much tracked my evolution from angry Republican to irate Independent, and included enough raw, unfiltered ranting that I was threatened with legal action, teaching me an important lesson about to benefits of covering up identities instead of trying to credit people with their written work.

2) I certainly was a real Republican. I helped campaign for Dole, for crying out loud. I was never a rabid Republican, in that the core ideals and beliefs were always more important to me than supporting a person or a party. I was a real Republican in the sense that I supported the Republicans like a political party, not like the hometown sports team. Treating your political affiliation like an athletic club preference isn't being "real," it's being "stupid."

3) I supported the Republicans as the party of economic responsibility. The Republican party has abandoned this ideal. Discretionary spending has risen more than twice as fast under Bush as it did under Clinton and every year under Bush has seen higher spending growth than Clinton's worst year. Spending is up, but taxes have been cut, especially for the most wealthy, with efforts still going on, using misinformation to gain support. They want to repeal the "death tax" to protect the children of farmers and small business owners, but a quick stop at the IRS site shows that any estate under $2 million, and any small business under $3 million, is immune to any inheritance tax.* (One might also point out, if one were more interested in giving due credit than spewing a party line, that the Democrats tried to raise this limit to $4 million.) This irresponsible economic policy means that our future has been leased to lender nations, with the majority of interest in China. Yet the President has the audacity to brag about very selective aspects of the economy when stumping for Republican candidates, despite the fact that the economy as a whole has been in steady decline for the last three years. A nation cannot survive long under an economy run as ineptly as ours has been run.




4) My support for the Republican party began in the early 1900's, when the Conservative movement promised a Contract with America and a government free of corruption. Yet they have become far more corrupt and beholden to corporate interests than anyone they ever fought against. I will not support a corrupt party, and the Republicans have been corrupted by unchecked power. The Democrats will have my support for as long as that is the case. If the Democrats take power and become corrupt, they will lose my support just as quickly.

My goal is not to support one party or destroy another. My goal is to see politicians who behave like statesmen and a government run for the people and not for the corporations. I concede that it may be too late. The bad habits are deeply entrenched, and the electorate is so disenchanted with government that it may be irrecoverable outside of a full revolution. That doesn't mean I'll stop trying. I love my country, and I love the ideals under which it was founded, and I will try. I will not grow lazy and ignorant and subcontract my responsibilities as a citizen to what amounts to a fandom with an elephant or donkey mascot.

* Relevant Line: For Gift Tax Purposes in years 2006, 2007 and 2008 the Unified Credit is $345,800, the Applicable Exclusion Amount is $1,000,000. For Estate Tax Purposes in years 2006, 2007 and 2008 the Unified Credit is $780,800 and the Applicable Exclusion Amount is $2,000,000.