My Take on Republican Policies
Because I’ve already done the Libertarian platform, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the rest of the major mainstream and independent parties to see what I agree with or disagree with in each of their ideals. The logical place to start is the party that I currently am a member of, but with whom I disagree on a huge percentage of things. Unfortunately, the Republican Party doesn’t outline their policy like the Libertarians do (one point for the Libertarians for accessibility). They do have some vague statements on their website but nothing that lays it on the line. Therefore, I’m going to use a non-official site that has a much better list that, at least judging by the information the GOP keeps mailing me, seems accurate. If anyone disagrees, by all means comment and I’ll address any discrepancies. Again, please visit the link above for more information on the GOP platform.
Social Security
Social Security, according to the source, should be privatized. I have no problem with that, it certainly can’t be any worse than the job the government has done over the years. Both parties are responsible for ransacking social security and using it for things that it was never intended for and thus, the system will be entirely bankrupt in less than 20 years. Every penny I’ve put into the system over the years, I will never get out again. It’s gone, spent on other things. However, I think individuals can do a better job with the money, I think we need some controls over how it’s used. The money that is currently set aside for social security ought to be reserved only for a personal retirement account, it shouldn’t be used for a new HD TV. For those people who don’t want to be bothered with it, they ought to be able to set up government-administered low-risk accounts, just like they have today, but those accounts cannot be touched by the government in any way, shape or form.
Jobs
Yes, I’m also pro-small-business. Throwing money with no strings attached at anyone with a sob story, like the current administration is doing, is wrong. It doesn’t generate jobs, that’s why we’re having a “jobless recovery” which is a complete oxymoron. We need to reward those people who are starting new businesses and hiring local workers. Everyone needs to be on an even playing field, including those companies that outsource their business overseas. We cannot allow them to move off-shore because it’s cheaper and they don’t have to follow US laws. Anyone headquartered in the US is liable to follow US laws no matter where their base of operations may be.
Economy
I’m entirely in favor of the free market, within reason. We’ve already seen that the free market, left entirely unregulated, runs away with billions of dollars to Fiji to lounge around on a nice, warm beach. We must have regulation, at least to ensure that no one is taking advantage of the system. I entirely disagree with deregulating corporations, we’ve seen where that gets us with the current mortgage and banking meltdown. No one was watching the wolves and they fleeced all the sheep. It’s a really, really bad idea.
Security/Defense
This is where I really start to disagree with Republican policies. I’m all for a strong defense, but a strong defense doesn’t mean sticking your nose into everyone else’s business. Unless you have demonstrable evidence that there is a direct threat to American soil or American citizens, get the hell out of their country. We spend more on our military than the next 13 top nations combined, it’s absurd how much tax money we funnel into so-called “national defense”. We’ve gone on a world-wide terror campaign against people who have had little or nothing to do with 9/11 and have entirely ignored nations that had direct ties, such as Saudi Arabia, because they’re our so-called “friends”. If we’re going to be toppling regimes, let’s go after the Saudi royalty. Drop a couple daisy-cutters on them for a change. They’ve at least earned it.
Legal/Tort Reforms
This is fine, as far as it goes, but how about limiting frivilous lawsuits entirely, especially by corporations? How many corporations and their high-paid shyster lawyers sue anyone and everyone they can find in order to keep their high profits flowing? The Republican party doesn’t want to step on the toes of big business because those are the people throwing millions of dollars into their campaign coffers. You notice they don’t want to limit compensation for their big business buddies. That has to stop.
Tax Reform
This is laughable. The Republicans are no better than the Democrats in this regard. Sure, lower taxes, then borrow trillions and keep spending like money is going out of style. Sure, I’d like to see lower taxes, but only if linked to lower spending and the Republicans don’t know what fiscal responsibility is anymore.
Secondly, the death penalty? From the party that has traditionally supported it? How about instead of getting rid of the death penalty, you actually FIX THE LEGAL SYSTEM? Oh wait, can’t do that, the lawyers are major Republican contributors! The fact is, the death penalty is positively cheap, it’s the ridiculous amount of legal wrangling that goes on that blows the cost sky-high. Convicted murderers are able to file as many legal briefs and appeals as they want, at taxpayer expense, just because they don’t want to die. They don’t even contest their guilt, they just don’t care for the sentence. So the American taxpayer pays through the nose for these slimebags to sit in prison with their court-appointed lawyer making $500 an hour, getting rich off the system. We don’t need to eliminate the death penalty, we need to streamline it.
Immigration
They support closed borders? Not lately they don’t. Let’s see, wasn’t it Ronald Reagan, Republican Saint that gave amnesty to 3+ million illegals and said “never again!” In 2007, George Bush II tried to give amnesty to 15+ million illegals, with the battle cry of “never again!” They don’t want closed borders, they want to provide cheap labor to their big business buddies. However, they don’t comprehend the situation. The only reason these illegals are getting work now is because they work cheap and can’t complain. As soon as you make them citizens, as soon as you legally guarantee them minimum wage and benefits, nobody is going to want them. They’re untrained labor. They’ll all end up on welfare because there’s no jobs for them at normal wages and because they’ve made them legal, they’re all magically eligible for public assistance. Meanwhile, the employers are going to be awaiting for the next batch of illegals to come across the border so they can hire them cheaply. What’s next? Wait until 2020 and give amnesty to 50+ million? There was a poll taken in Mexico not that many years ago that indicated that upwards of 70 million Mexicans would be open to illegally coming to America if they reasonably thought they could get away with it. Under both Republican and Democrat rule, they’re willing to throw open the doors and look the other way.
We need true immigration control. We have a right to control who comes onto our country, just as we have a right to determine who comes into our homes. The Republicans are full of shit.
Faith
It should come as no surprise but the Republicans are entirely wrong here. We have this concept called “separation of church and state” in this country and they ignore it. They’ve jumped on board the fundamentalist Christian bandwagon and as much as they trumpet that they’re for freedom of religion, the fact is they’re only for the freedom of THEIR religion to force faith on everyone else. That’s where all the “faith-based initiative” nonsense came from. We need to get religion entirely out of politics. If the churches want to have a political say, they can pay their goddamn entrance fee (ie. taxes) like everyone else.
Education
This is closely related to the faith issue in that they really want to give federal tax money to church schools, in violation of “separation of church and state”. Sorry, no go. I’m all for choice in education and certainly some of those schools do provide a good education, although not nearly by as wide a margin as they seem to think. Private schools get to pick and choose who gets to go. Anyone who makes trouble or doesn’t perform gets kicked out. Public schools don’t have that luxury, they have to take all comers. Let’s see the private schools be required to follow the same rules as a consequence of accepting public money. Most won’t go for it. We have a major problem with education in this country, but it has nothing to do with school choice and a lot to do with the fact that no one is willing to take on the core problems. Educational standards are politicized to the point of absurdity. Schools exist to teach facts, not to teach politically-motivated nonsense. Let’s fix education instead of sweeping the problems under the rug.
Abortion
They argue that they want adoption instead of abortion. That’s great, I support that for women who want to give up their children for adoption, but the fact is, many women do not. It is not the job of the government to infringe on a woman’s right to self-determination. However, I will say that their stance on this is entirely two-faced. They don’t want abortion but they don’t want birth control or sex education either. I guess they magically that the only people who are going to get pregnant are married, heterosexual couples that actually want as many offspring as they can possibly generate. That position is absurd. I likely couldn’t disagree more on a position if I tried.
Energy
No matter what they say, they don’t promote finding alternative energy sources, they’re too wedded to keeping the current oil fiasco going. Sure, they want to make cars more gas-efficient but they’re not funding true alternative energy source research because too many rich Republicans make too much money off of oil. Can you imagine what would happen if someone came up with a cheap alternative to oil? They’d sue to keep it from ever coming to light. Bush and his asshat administration spent too much money and American lives in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East to allow all that freely flowing oil to go to waste.
Healthcare
I can’t stand the healthcare plans of either the Republicans or Democrats. Neither of them want to address the actual core problems of the healthcare system. Those include ambulance-chasing lawyers, the current insurance industry and government incompetence. After all, both sides of the aisle have entirely failed to administer things like social security and Medicare, to the point of bankrupting both systems in very short order, and we’re supposed to give them billions more? Does anyone really trust them? I sure don’t. If they’d just attack the real problems and regulate the system, we wouldn’t need government-funded healthcare, everyone could afford private care. I want more choices guys, how about… COMPETENCE!
Foreign Policy
Oh joy, spread democracy. Guess what guys, that’s not our job. Spend more time worrying about American concerns and less time waving your pathetic little dicks around. Waving your finger in the air and screaming “We’re #1″ doesn’t make it so. There was a time when the US produced some of the best products in the world. Today, we hardly produce anything, we’ve become an entirely consumer culture, we import almost everything that we use and the rest of the world doesn’t like what few things we actually make. It’s no wonder our automobile industry is going under. Let’s spend more time worrying about what we do at home and less trying to make everyone else on the planet like us.
Guns
In general terms, I have nothing against rational gun ownership. However, there’s little rational about the far-right-wing gun nut mentality. I’ve debated with people who want to be able to own anything and everything up to and including nukes, and have no restrictions whatsoever on what they do with it. Carry it down the street? Sure, why not. Aim it at people? What’s the harm? Have shoot-outs with “bad guys”? What the heck! These are children who have no concept of rationality or common sense. The idea that “if we register our guns, the evil government might come and take them away!” is pathetic and paranoid. I want to know who has what, not because I have any interest in grabbing guns but because I want to know that the people who are carrying around a loaded shotgun aren’t lunatics. We’ve got far too many gun-toting lunatic Republicans out there already, some of them shooting at abortion clinics.
Gay Rights
Again with the faith-based bullshit. The Constitution guarantees equality to all, not just their chosen few. We need equality in all 50 states whether some religious fucks like it or not. You cannot say that you are defending the Constitution when you’re spitting on it. Unfortunately, a lot of Republicans read the Constitution conveniently, they only see what they want to see (like the first 13 words of the Second Amendment) and ignore the rest.
So I’ll admit that I’m not really a Republican, at least as Republicans are defined today. I’m a Goldwater Republican, he warned about allowing the religious right to get a foothold in the party and he was absolutely right. Too bad there are no better parties anywhere to jump ship to.
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