Article I wrote for the school paper

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Eliot, Jan 24, 2005.

  1. Eliot

    Eliot Member

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    Don't be fooled, GOP is dead


    What happened to the Republican Party? Why has it become almost necessary for true Republicans like myself to clarify what it means to be Republican? Why must a Republican like myself consider, if for only a second (although I admit, I considered for a longer amount of time), supporting Democrat John Kerry? The answer is quite simple. The Republican Party, the true Republican Party that once stood for less funding, that once stood for small government, that once stood for the moral right, is dead. And its corpse is being showcased like a puppet on a stick in a constant parade of imposters by our current GOP.​

    Politics have always been dirty. I am not trying to claim that there was once a time of honest people running the country in a fair and sensible manner. I could question the Republicans of years ago just as easily as I am accusing the Republicans of our modern era. Any time you give money and power to a select few people, those select few people are going to do their damnedest to make sure they and their friends get to keep that money and power until they die, or longer. This is no secret. However, one can’t help but notice the striking differences between what I refer to as a strange cult of Neo-Conservatives, and the Republican Party your grandfather knew.

    In its four years of office, George W. Bush’s administration has spent roughly $225 billion on the war in Iraq alone. According to Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus, this is not the most expensive war if inflation is factored into the equation. In today‘s dollars, the Vietnam War cost us $500 billion. However, that was over a period of eight years. We are only two and a half years into the War on Terror, and we have already paid nearly half as much as we did thirty years ago. Disgustingly, big spending on military efforts has become the norm for Republicans, rather than the focus on agriculture, education, and civil rights that we’ve seen from Republicans of the seemingly distant past. And then there’s the rest of the funding, in which President Bush is hoping to save face. It has been recently reported that the Bush administration has prepared an aggressive budget cut that would all but cut off funding to agriculture, veterans, and science, along with severing several Federal programs. It would also shift funding of more costs, like Medicaid and housing, to state and local governments as opposed to the Federal government. These are all changes that I would support if they were not over-shadowed by the constantly growing military budget.

    However, this administration’s focus on large government still remains. President Bush can slash funding all he wants, but his focus on creating constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell research still remains. I can understand the reasoning behind a Christian man opposing homosexuality and abortion. But when a president stops thinking of what’s best for the entire country, for every single person in the nation, and starts thinking of what is right according to his personal belief system, hasn’t that, historically, been time to call a president self-serving and unfit? When Lyndon B. Johnson embarked on a crusade through Vietnam to stop Communism, not acting in the best interests of all the people, but in the best interests of the few like-minded people, was he not criticized by millions, and is Vietnam not known as a mistake? And is Ronald Reagan’s sale of arms to Iran to fund guerilla warfare in Nicaragua not known, in modern day, as one of the worst acts committed by a president? Granted, gay marriage and abortion probably won’t lead to the deaths of thousands or millions of people, but the idea remains. These are not acts of politics, these are acts of religion. And it is agreed by all that a diplomat has no place acting on personal bias.

    The ideas of morals have been slaughtered nearly to the point of obsolescence by Neo-Conservatives. At one time, the moral right stood for privacy, equality, and independence. The Patriot Act and other actions taken by Neo-Cons have destroyed our right of privacy, even if an extent of it was necessary to ensure security. Our rights of equality are being stripped from us with Affirmative Action (solve the problem, don’t create a loophole to get through it) and the desired illegality of gay marriage. And, most importantly, our rights of independence are being lost as more and more Americans lose jobs and the economy sinks due to the Neo-Cons’ excessive military spending. The moral right no longer stands for the ability to choose for oneself; the moral right now stands for what is right according to the morals of those in power.

    It should not be easily forgotten, and yet it has, that the Republican Party was originally formed for the Abolitionist movement. I can not imagine these pauper-in-the-prince’s-clothes Republicans supporting the action of abolition, as the government stripping someone of their property is a Socialist act. I am almost amused at the thought of President Bush’s administration dealing with slavery. However, my amusement quickly gives way to concern, as I realize who is running our country. So who should we accuse for the death of the Republican Party? Should we fault the imposters operating under the name of Republicanism? Or should we blame the American people for allowing such a travesty to occur? I, for one, accuse both.
     
  2. StonerBill

    StonerBill Learn

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    Youve helped the anti-bush cause in this essay but you have not really adressed all of the things that the old republicans would have done that is much better.

    The republican party stood for less funding, why are you annoyed that the new republican movement is all for putting money into military (which is the principle manner of funding something that is completely governmental and doesnt integrate with society and independent groups at all, unless when working along side police)?

    Though you have outlined an important flaw in this contemporary conservatism (though im not sure the old republicans were very different) which is that both communism and this so called neorepublicism force comformity in some way or another.

    but isnt that just a case of that loop, whereby right wing is one direction and left wing is the other, but when you get to the other side of the loop, they are essentially the same?
     
  3. sophie

    sophie Member

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    you americans are just weird :)
     
  4. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    **

    Sorry Eliot but I found your post rather confusing to read and I suspect that some of my reading of it is wrong since otherwise there wouldn’t be agriculture in two opposing lists.

    You might have better conveyed your argument by stating what you saw as the old RP stance and then what you see as being that of the “strange cult of Neo-Conservatives”. Then you could have better contrasted the differences and the similarities.

    As it is are you saying that the old Republican stance was -

    Small Government
    Less government spending
    Spending funding on such things as agriculture education and civil rights
    Cut funding to such things as agriculture, veterans, science (presumably R&D), Medicaid and housing
    Defending privacy, equality and independence

    And the new elements are -

    Being overtly religious
    Inroads into privacy
    And above all its military spending

    **

    I’ll wait for your reply but in the mean time I’ll put forward a hypothesis.

    The US has two right wing parties at the moment one is conservatively liberal, the other is ideologically radical.

    The US has a small base of voters with many people seemingly unwilling to vote and in this atmosphere the Democrats are afraid to do anything that might upset their voters. Their policies were therefore rather insipid and conservative, they don’t want to push too politically ‘left wing’ ideas for fear of losing the more ‘right wing’ elements but don’t want to put off their more ‘left wing’ supports from voting by being too politically ‘right wing’. So they voted for a leader who was seen as ‘safe’ and they had ‘reasonable’ policies.

    The thing is that the Republican should be suffering from the same problem except for a quirk of American society. What they have done is nurture a group that for the most part is not politically motivated. This means that the people in charge have been able to push a radical agenda without having to fear alienating the more conservative Republicans. They’ve calculated that those Republicans that might not vote or even vote for a Democratic candidate is far outweighed by the numbers they can get by putting on or pushing forward their born again Christian face. But once having used that face they become committed in some way to the Christian agenda.

    **
     
  5. Pressed_Rat

    Pressed_Rat Do you even lift, bruh?

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    That was a good write-up, but I honestly think both parties are flawed and not what they once were, or ever will be again. It's Corporate Party A and Corporate Party B.
     
  6. Eliot

    Eliot Member

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    As for that conflicting issue on the agricultural spending, the reason that I am for it right now is because we are must address the deficit, and the sole reason for the Bush administration to cut funding to agriculture, veterens, etc. is in response to the defecit. So it's a start.
     
  7. homebudz

    homebudz Hip Forums Supporter HipForums Supporter

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    Good paper Eliot.
     
  8. Eliot

    Eliot Member

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    And I do realize that I could have gone more in depth, and I wanted to, but it was for the school newsletter, so I only had so much room.
     
  9. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    The thing is between ideology and outcome.

    You wish to bring down the deficit, to do this you wish to cut money to the military and agriculture. So would you vote for a political party that wished to cut military spending because they were pacifists, that cut US agricultural subsidies so as to simulate third world agriculture. What if they raised government revenue by raising petrol prices so to discourage gas-guzzles and promote more economical cars?

    **

    I would have to say that in a two party system that where both parties are right wing, there are many Republicans that will not even vote for the very tame policies of the Democrats let alone an agenda that was truly radically left wing.

    **

    So while old style Republicans might rile against the present regime would they actually vote against it? How much further would the Democrats have to go to the right to be attractive enough to ‘Republicans’ for them to vote for them?

    And would that be attractive or helpful to the US democracy?
     
  10. HuckFinn

    HuckFinn Senior Member

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    The campaign for a marriage amendment is a direct response to the blatant efforts by activists judges to forcibly legalize gay "marriage" without any constitutional basis.



    As for abortion, I'm not aware of Bush supporting a Right to Life Amendment. Rather, I suspect that he simply believes the Constitution leaves the issue up to states to decide, which it clearly does.



    He hasn't even promoted legislation to ban stem cell research, let alone a constitutional amendment. He has vigorously funded non-embryonic stem cell research, while allowing private firms to choose whether to fund embryonic stem cell research. Few have shown interest in doing so, however, because the risks seem to far outweigh the absurdly hyped benefits.





    Abortion kills well over a million every year, in the US alone.
     

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