Why it is Hard to be a Republican

I thought about waiting a few days/weeks to post this, but then decided I would put it up now and then leave politics off the blog for a while. I know you are all just dying to hear more about what Ali has to say about Harry Potter/Twilight :)

I’ve said I was going to post something about my strained relationship with the Republican party, so here ya go. For the new visitor, I have made a few, somewhat ranting, posts about conservatism as I see it. I do not consider the Republican Party and their policies to be a good example of conservativism in action. I also have an issue with a good portion of the constituents of the Republican party. Let’s get to the splainin.

The Mouth Breathers. Dear God, the Mouth Breathers. I don’t think that politics are for intellectuals, the studied, the educated, or even the intelligent. But, darn, this party has more than it’s fair share of slack-jawed yokels. And there is nothing wrong with being a slack-jawed yokel, but it makes for an interesting party. My real complaint is that the Mouth Breathers (like other groups I’ll mention) usually manage to reach the correct conservative principle by the most offensive means possible. I don’t think the problem with social-programs is that they support the poor, are ineffective, benefit inner-city welfare-moms, encourage “immoral” ideas, or threatens to change my “culture.” And not all the Mouth Breathers put it that way, but you can’t talk to some of them with out deciding that is how they decided to be a Republican. Perhaps they are practically conservative, but conceptually they make the same error as liberals: they believe the gov’t is a tool to be employed to shape society to their liking.

The Religious Fruits. I expect people to be integral: every aspect of your life informs the others. So I’m not surprised when religious people look to their faith to answer questions that extend to spiritual, philosophical ideas. Barrack Obama recently suggested that politicians are poorly equipped to decide when a fetus should be given human rights. He is probably right, it isn’t a simple question (although, not telling us how he feels was a ginormous cop out). Something like the fetus question isn’t even a science question – we can’t expect scientists to tell us when a human is a “human.” So people should resort to deeper convictions when talking about something like that. But, I swear, if I hear another person tell me that Jesus is Republican, or that some policy is the Christian stance or that a candidate is a true “Christian Candidate” (I’m looking at you, Suckabee), I might just go burn some religious artifact to rile them up some more. (Note to liberal law student who said people who vote for Republicans have no soul: I remember Jesus telling me to love my neighbor, I don’t remember him saying that I should try to pass a law to make other people “love” their neighbors, or threaten people who don’t “love” their neighbor with an IRS audit and jail time. Let’s just keep my soul out of this.)

Various other Racists, Homophobes, Bigots, and Idiots. Pretty much any one who acts like the people above, but for some other reason. People who say things about immigrants being lazy, diluting our “American culture” (dear mercy, I want to slap some people), having diseases, not learning English, etc., and then propose building a wall to stop them. A wall? Also in this group are people who want to do away with birth-right citizenship. The anti-birth-right people are usually better at articulating their reasons and might not even be one of the people in the title to this section. But if you have even a small sense of American History, giant, red, flashing lights with loud sirens should go off in some part of your brain when someone says “Not all people born in America are really full citizens.” Deciding that some people born in America aren’t quite as wholly American is dangerous, dangerous, territory. I know - let’s just ascribe 3/7ths status to non-American people born in the U.S.! This was also my biggest complaint about Ron Paul’s book. The Framers got this one right, Ron, let’s not mess with it.

The Absolutely Not-Conservative Policies. A preemptive war? A military presence in most of the world? Spying on your citizens? Granting a nearly unlimited war-power to the Executive? Torture? Federal control of public schools? Massive spending and debt? Control of the economy by artificially adjusting interest rates (ie, printing fake money)? Trade restrictions (or even trade “agreements”) with foreign nations? Creating giant police-agencies? “Nation Building?”

These are not the indicia of small government. These are the indicia of a group of people taking control of the Gov’t and are “driving it like it’s stolen.” Republicans seem happy to grow government and then claim they are growing government in the direction of “conservative principles.” That is like saying “We are fornicating in a chaste way.”