Some Thoughts On the Republican Party

For some time the GOP seems to navigating to places the country doesn’t want to go. And so they are being abandoned.

I have been trying for some time to come to terms with my complete disdain for the current state of the GOP. Not had much luck. My only real conviction is that they are heading in a direction I can’t follow. It is OK, though, because I don’t think most of the country is going to follow them either.

I’ve read much what others are writing and have been commenting on other sites, but not feeling that I can put my position into exact words.

So now I give up, since most of it has already been written by others. Specifically I find myself agreeing with much of what Eric and Simon of Classical Values have to say.

Classical Values » I Am A Heretic describes the Republican party as a religious movement. It is one that I may reject for different reasons than Simon. But neither one of us is believer in that particular dogma. (Most Republicans don’t want me in their damn party anyway.)

Classical Values » An issue as ahead of its time as counting chickens before they hatch. Not satisfied with the smack down they received in the Indiana and Missouri Senate races, the Republicans (at least some of them) are about to double-down on an issue that is a non-starter for most of America. Person-hood. Life begins at conception. Whatever. The plain attempt to make one brand of conservative Christian philosophy the law of the land. (See the item above, regarding dogma.) Que Akin on the subject of “Legitimate Rape,” and Mourdock on “god’s will.”

I sometimes touch on the War on (some) Drugs™, and why continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different outcome is one definition of insanity. Simon covers it much more frequently (and gets the requisite amount of conservative grief for doing so). Still, conservatives never really want to discuss it. “Fuck you, it’s for your own good” pretty much sums up the view on the Right. (Why doesn’t the Republican Party recognize that markets work? Even if they are supplying something you don’t like, they work.)

It is probably long past time for a 3rd party. I just don’t see the Libertarians in that role just yet.

Voting for Clinton wasn’t hard. I did it twice. (Bush Sr. was an idiot, and Dole completely out-of-touch.) Voting in the future elections is likely to be really tough. (I mean be fair, if Romney was living west of the Mississippi, his policies from MA would have him branded a Democrat, maybe a liberal Democrat.) I expect it will be a very long time before I have the chance to vote for a politician I actually like.