"Why I Gave Up On Being a Republican"

[finehoe]

"As a local GOP official after President Obama’s election, I had a front-row seat as it became infected by a dangerous and virulent form of political rabies. In the grip of this contagion, the Republican Party has come unhinged. Its fevered hallucinations involve threats from imaginary communists and socialists who, seemingly, lurk around every corner. Climate change - a reality recognized by every single significant scientific body and academy in the world - is a liberal conspiracy conjured up by Al Gore and other leftists who want to destroy America. Large numbers of Republicans - the notorious birthers - believe that the President was not born in the United States. Even worse, few figures in the GOP have the courage to confront them.

Republican economic policies are also indefensible.

The GOP constantly claims that its opponents are engaged in "class warfare," but this is an exercise in projection. In Republican proposals, the wealthy win, and the rest of us lose - one only has to look at Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget to see that.

As Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein have written, "the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier—ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition." Its reckless behavior helps drive the political dysfunction crippling our nation.

In the end, it offers a dystopian vision of our future - a harsher, crueler and more merciless America starkly divided between the riders, and the ridden."

http://www.cagle.com/2012/06/why-i-gave-up-on-being-a-republican/

[FayeforCure]

Wow, that's a really powerful statement. Unfortunately very few people actually think about their votes........it's more of a knee jerk reaction that keeps them in locked in what they've always done.

But the statement is also reflected in Jeb Bush's views about his own political party...........if only he could bring himself to vote against the madness that his party has evolved to.

Saying something is one thing, DOING something about it is another.

We need more doers and less sayers.

[FayeforCure]

"As a local GOP official after President Obama’s election, I had a front-row seat as it became infected by a dangerous and virulent form of political rabies. In the grip of this contagion, the Republican Party has come unhinged. Its fevered hallucinations involve threats from imaginary communists and socialists who, seemingly, lurk around every corner. Climate change - a reality recognized by every single significant scientific body and academy in the world - is a liberal conspiracy conjured up by Al Gore and other leftists who want to destroy America. Large numbers of Republicans - the notorious birthers - believe that the President was not born in the United States. Even worse, few figures in the GOP have the courage to confront them.

Republican economic policies are also indefensible.

The GOP constantly claims that its opponents are engaged in "class warfare," but this is an exercise in projection. In Republican proposals, the wealthy win, and the rest of us lose - one only has to look at Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget to see that.

As Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein have written, "the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier—ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition." Its reckless behavior helps drive the political dysfunction crippling our nation.

In the end, it offers a dystopian vision of our future - a harsher, crueler and more merciless America starkly divided between the riders, and the ridden."

http://www.cagle.com/2012/06/why-i-gave-up-on-being-a-republican/

Republican Economic Policies illuminated below:

[buckethead]

Insert D for R in this contrivance, and the story remains just as viable.

It looks like a dog and pony show, although it contains much truth.

[finehoe]

[JeffreyS]

That is a particularly funny jab after Mittens went after Obama this week for wanting to do something as crazy as hire cops.

[urbanlibertarian]

Republicans say they want less government but they only propose slowing the growth of government.  The vast majority of them would even balk at freezing the federal budget at current levels and even that would mean deficit spending for many years.

[FayeforCure]

Republicans say they want less government but they only propose slowing the growth of government.  The vast majority of them would even balk at freezing the federal budget at current levels and even that would mean deficit spending for many years.

We continue to spend more on destruction than on rebuilding America:

[FayeforCure]

Insert D for R in this contrivance, and the story remains just as viable.

It looks like a dog and pony show, although it contains much truth.

I agree that it is a dog and pony show, but there still is a big difference........Dems generally support collective bargaining, stronger regulation and better enforcement. Besides they are not funded by the Koch brothers!

[carpnter]

Republicans say they want less government but they only propose slowing the growth of government.  The vast majority of them would even balk at freezing the federal budget at current levels and even that would mean deficit spending for many years.

We continue to spend more on destruction than on rebuilding America:

That pie chart is from 2008 and it may not be entirely accurate since certain spending was left out of it.
Here are two others that are similar to it.

[Anti redneck]

Really, I find a lot of truth to this thread. I try to see things from a Republican standpoint, but something just doesn't sit well with me as far as today's Republicans are concerned. Do I think Obama has been outstanding? I think he can do better. But at the same time, he passes off as a President who caters more to middle-class America than Romney or any other Republican candidate would (except I got good vibes from Ron Paul). Romney passes off as a guy who would let the middle class die off. Yet, there are those Americans who still support today's Republicans and are not even rich or business owners. Do they know what they support? Even John McCain said that the GOP is messed up. That's saying something, there.

[FayeforCure]

Thanks carpnter for the clarification of it being a 2008 pie chart, that didn't include all expenses.

Still, it shows how our destructive priorities trump any American Rebuilding of the middle class............and Bush policies are almost entirely to blame for the country's deficit problems.........something Republicans try to spin on Obama even though the stimulous spending dwarfs Bush's disasterous policies. See chart below:

[carpnter]

Thanks carpnter for the clarification of it being a 2008 pie chart, that didn't include all expenses.

Still, it shows how our destructive priorities trump any American Rebuilding of the middle class............and Bush policies are almost entirely to blame for the country's deficit problems.........something Republicans try to spin on Obama even though the stimulous spending dwarfs Bush's disasterous policies. See chart below:

This chart isn't accurate either.  I am not going to defend the ridiculous spending under Bush, but spending under Obama has been no better.  This isn't a republican or a democrat problem.  This is our problem and we won't elect politicians who will make the tough decisions.  Instead we elect politicians who are more interested in maintaining their hold on power than they are in doing what is best for our country.

[NotNow]

^^^^^^^^^^^
What he said.

[urbanlibertarian]

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Scarborough: Why I Voted for Ron Paul
From politico.com
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77335.html

By JOE SCARBOROUGH | 6/12/12 1:11 PM EDT

I operate on instinct. So I should not have been surprised by my own gut reaction to the absentee ballot that lay before me on the kitchen table.

I scanned the list for Republican primary candidates and let instinct take over.

Mitt Romney? Not on your life. A big government Republican who will say anything to get elected.

Rick Santorum? No way. A pro-life statist who helped George W. Bush double the national debt.

Newt Gingrich? Ideologically unmoored. A champion of liberty one day, a central planner the next.

Ron Paul? Yep. I quickly checked his name and moved on to a far more complex task: fixing my daughter a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

After spending six months analyzing each candidate’s every move for three hours a day, five days a week, it never occurred to me that my decision to vote for the quirky congressman from Texas would happen as fast as a tornado whipping through an Amarillo parking lot. After all, who would vote for a candidate that criticized the killing of Osama bin Laden, blamed U.S. foreign policy for Sept. 11 and wants to abolish Social Security?

Certainly not me.

But I also would never vote for a GOP candidate who was the godfather of Obamacare, or another who added $7 trillion to Medicare’s debt or yet another who bashed Paul Ryan one week and venture capital the next. Faced with this truckload of big government Republicans, I cast my vote for the only candidate who spent his entire public career standing athwart history yelling “stop” to an ever-expanding centralized state.

While Romney was distancing himself from Ronald Reagan, Paul was fighting with Republicans to balance the budget for the first time in a generation. While Santorum was supporting an unprecedented expansion of entitlement spending, Paul was warning of a great recession that would be caused by government interference in the housing market. And while Gingrich was talking about how he would build up the federal government to push his conservative agenda, Congressman Paul spent all his waking hours focused on dismembering that big government beast.

It was the first “protest” vote I’ve ever cast, and it felt … well, it felt good. Suddenly I understood a bit better why the Ross Perot or the Pat Buchanan or the Ralph Nader voters did what they did.

They thought the system was so broken that they couldn’t sit out but also couldn’t stomach voting for a conventional candidate at a time of unconventional problems.

Do I think a Ron Paul presidency is ever possible? No, I don’t. But I do want some of the Pauline virtues of candor and non-poll-tested conviction to play a larger role in our politics.

So now I’ve cast my protest vote. It felt good.

What I really want, though, is a party and a politics that’s commensurate with the problems and possibilities of the country. We’ll get there one day — and then we can focus on progress, not protest.

A guest columnist for POLITICO, Joe Scarborough hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC and represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77335.html#ixzz1y5726Zv4