WHY I’M NOT A REPUBLICAN

I consider myself a loyal American and think I’m middle of the road politically. I have never missed voting in an election, and I think we should have universal military service. I believe in public schools and the right to bear arms. I keep guns at home. If someone tried to harm my family, I would not hesitate to punch their ticket. I support the local police and believe in national defense.

But I could never be a Republican. Here’s why: misdirected wars, ignorance of the environment, tax policies in favor of the rich, fake morality, lying for political gain, violent hatred, threats to use force to gain political power, and false-front organizations.

Let me give some details:

1. Iraq. Under the Republican leadership of President George W. Bush, we invaded a foreign nation that was ruled by a vicious dictator (that we had previously supported), but that didn't threaten us and had no capability of harming us. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died. Millions more have been displaced. Iraq had no connection to the attacks of 9/11. Our invasion made no strategic sense and has produced nothing of long-term value for the USA. We have lost 4,000 brave Americans in this war.

Apparently the current regime in Iraq does not have a sterling human rights record. I heard on the radio the other day an interview with an Iraqi man who said, “It’s just like Saddam, all over again.”

We spent billions of dollars and spilled our blood for this?

When we invaded Iraq, I marched against the war, but I told my liberal friends, “The war may be wrong, but at least a lot of good, intelligent Americans are going over there to do the right thing.” Now I’m not so sure. I think it was a colossal mistake.

2. Guatemala. President Ronald Reagan’s policies resulted in the deaths of 200,000 innocent people. It was an hysterical anti-communist scare that had no basis in reality. I doubt if those peons in the mountains of Central American even knew what a communist was, or if they had even heard of Karl Marx.

3. Vietnam. Unfortunately, I can’t blame this misdirected war all on the GOP. President Kennedy took part in the wanton killing of innocent rice farmers. But no one was as guilty as Nixon, and my GOP friend still supports the war. Three million Vietnamese and fifty thousand Americans died, because of anti-communist fear and hysteria. Remember, we had to burn the villages to save them. Ridiculous.

4. When Sarah Palin was governor of Alaska, before she resigned in mid-term, she sent a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California arguing against a policy that would have saved about 2,000 lives a year in Southern California. It would have required the cleanup of diesel emissions near Long Beach and Los Angeles Harbors. To her, profits were more important than people. Cough-cough. I can’t see Sarah for the smog. This is a pro-death policy, not a pro-life policy.

5. Political economy. In the USA, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Over the past 50 years, our income has migrated up the economic ladder. Pretty soon, we’ll be like a Latin American country, where 10% of the people hold onto 90% of the wealth. Apparently, that is what Republicans want. Tax policies, mostly supported by the GOP, continue to push us in that direction. This country was built on a strong middle class, and we should strengthen it, not undercut it.

6. Lies, distortions, and fake morality. A short list:

a. Republican George W. Bush lied to defeat Democrat Ann Richards for the governorship of Texas. This lie was concocted by Karl Rove. They took out ads saying that juvenile crime was up in Texas and Richards wasn’t doing anything about it. In fact, juvenile crime was down. The young Bush started his meteoric rise in politics with a big fat lie.

b. Bush lied about yellowcake Uranium from Niger. He lied about Saddam Hussein plotting to attack the USA. His secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, lied when she said we might see a mushroom cloud over the White House.

c. Newt Gingrich was having an affair while his wife was in the hospital. At the same time, he was criticizing President Bill Clinton for his lack of morals. Isn’t that living a lie? It certainly is fake morality.

d. The so-called “Ground-Zero Mosque” that Gingrich and other right wingers raged on about was not a mosque at all, and was not planned for Ground Zero. It would be a 13-story community center that would be open to the public, with a concert hall, a gymnasium, a child-care facility, a library, a culinary school and restaurant, and a prayer room. It was planned to take the place of an old Burlington Coat factory two blocks from Ground Zero. But you can’t get ignorant people fired up with the truth. A community center on the site of an old coat factory? Oh my God!

e. So-called “death panels” didn’t exist, were not proposed and won’t exist. They were a Sarah Palin special: bull crap on toast.

f. The so-called pro-lifers have a twisted sense of morality when it comes to abortion. Conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly on Fox News called Dr. George Tiller, a physician in Wichita, KS, “Tiller the killer” because the doctor performed late-term abortions. But Tiller saved hundreds of women’s lives, and he would only do the procedure if the woman’s life was in danger and if the baby was already brain-dead inside them or otherwise not viable. Then a nut-job murdered Tiller, believing he was doing the right thing.

7. The violent hatred. I have a right-wing friend, who shall remain nameless, who called President Obama both a Nazi and a Marxist. Of course, that makes no sense. Hitler rose to power in 1930s Germany by fomenting anti-communist hysteria and blaming Jews for the country’s extreme economic problems. Henry Ford and other big American businessmen supported Hitler because they feared communism. Ford built the tanks that Hitler used to invade Poland. But American right wingers now despise Obama and call him Hitler. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be both a Nazi and a communist.

8. Threats to use guns to gain power. Some extreme right wingers now say they are going to use “Second-Amendment remedies” to bring down Congress and the President. Sounds like Latin America or Nazi Germany. And these people call themselves good Americans? Unbelievable. Mainstream GOP leaders have not repudiated them, as they should.

9. Neglect of the environment. A right-wing friend said to me one time, “Maybe God put us on Earth to destroy it.” Hmmm, OK. Then we’ve been doing a good job. If you hate the outdoors, and nature, and forests, and clean lakes and rivers with fish in them, and green trees, and wildlife, then you’re a good Republican.

10. Many right-wing organizations, like “Americans For Prosperity,” are fronts for big business. AFP is a political front for the billionaires Charles and David Koch, owners of Koch Industries, a $100-billion-a-year oil conglomerate with HQ in Wichita, KA. The Koch brothers have paid AFP spokesmen who say such things as, “Liberals are like red ants at a picnic, you just have to squash them.” Do these people sound like good Americans? Why hide in the shadows if they aren’t doing anything wrong? What are they ashamed of? Is violence good for American politics?

The Grand Old Party’s principles seem to be that you have to kill for peace, that pollution is OK, long live the rich, tell any lie to win, hate the Democrats for they are the enemy within, it’s OK to use guns to gain power, and it’s OK to conduct political business in the shadows.

Are these your values? They are not mine.

I could never be a Republican. The truth is important to me. Civilization is important. The right to dissent is important. Free speech is important. The strength of the USA is important. “United we stand, divided we fall,” as someone once said. The right-wingers and tea partiers are trying to divide the country, not unite it. They don’t have the nation’s best interests at heart, and they don’t understand the consequences of their ideology. They are so sure they are right, they will kill the rest of us to prove it.

Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle