Learningtolive,
I've known real libertarians and while I disagree with them, I can almost always continue to talk to them. What passes for "libertarianism" in the GOP today is a thinly veiled religious "gospel of wealth" cloaked in flag and bible. And it's easy to detect these people. A fellow who was a huge Romney supporter and was so outraged that Obama won re-election swore he had become a Libertarian. But knowing his positions, I asked how he felt about laws against GLBT persons. Not equality laws, but actual laws against GLBT persons, criminalizing sodomy, oral sex, etc. He was all in favor of those. I asked him about whether he was pro-choice or not, and of course he was not. I asked him if he supported mandated fetal ultrasound laws, and he did. I asked him whether he supported three strikes rules and the continued war on drugs, and he did. I asked him if he supported prison sentences for non-violent offenses, such as marijuana possession, and he did. I asked his opinion on the wars that Bush started and he was still all gung ho about those.
At that point I started to tick off the Libertarian party's actual positions, and he got angrier and angrier. I reminded him that these are the things the Libertarians stand for, not just "Republicanism with more free market". That's one reason Ron Paul moved away from the Libertarian Party - his views were not fully in sync with the party's views.
The vast majority of "libertarian" Republicans I've met are just social conservatives trying to dress up their religious bigotry with something they think sound intellectual. Paul Ryan is like that and before his death, conservative pastor and firebrand, Chuck Colson took Ryan to task for his hypocrisy. Eric Cantor has openly discussed his admiration of Patrick Henry and Henry's focus on small government, yet Cantor doesn't tell us why Henry was focused on limited government. Henry's rationale for limited government was summed up when he screamed at his fellow Virginia delegates to the Constitutional convention, after reading the new constitutions
expansive powers as, "They'll free your n*****s!!" And yes, he said that. And yes, that is the basis of the history of the "limited government" movement in the United States.
It's no coincidence that the tea party is strongest in the old confederate states. It's no coincidence that the secession talk almost all comes from old confederate states, even after ulta-conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote (when asked directly about secession), "I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede." No right to secede. This from the most conservative jurist on the Supreme Court, yet the tea party continues to beat that drum.
There are legitimate fiscal conservatives in the GOP but those people are constantly being drowned out by the radical religious social conservatives. Those people are why Romney tacked hard right during the primaries then tried to shift back to the center during the national campaign. Those people are the ones that lost, almost universally this last Tuesday as a plethora of moderate or even true liberal candidates were elected, even in states like Virginia.
I was a Republican once. I walked away as I witnessed the internal racism grow worse instead of better, as the party became more and more extreme, with many demands that mirror demands the Taliban has made in Afghanistan. Barry Goldwater foresaw this coming and was not the least bit kind to the religious extremists.
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"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them...
There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'"
Until the GOP steps away from the right wing religious insanity, I will continue to believe that they pose the single greatest threat to the existence of this republic. These people are a typhoon of danger while Obama is just some morning breeze in comparison.
To Shantel,
- The GOP opposed Social Security.
- The GOP opposed Medicare.
- The GOP opposed the Civil Rights Act and Goldwater expressly ran against it in 1964. The Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act? Dixecrats, many of whom switched parties to become Republicans.
- The GOP has continued to use the "Southern Strategy", first formulated by Kevin Phillips, then refined by Lee Atwater and then Karl Rove. This is a strategy of using veiled racism to appeal to southern white racist voters, hence the "conservative south".
- The GOP's usage of racism is so blatant that in 2005, Ken Mehlman, chairman of the RNC, felt compelled to apologize publicly for the GOP's racist electioneering history over the last 50 years.
- The GOP grew government to its largest size ever, 3 million employees under Reagan. (Obama has reduced it to the level that LBJ was at 50 years ago.)
- The GOP fabricated an entire tower of lies about WMDs to invade Iraq. Bush's lies dwarf Obama's and Bush deserves to be tried for war crimes and so does Cheney.
- Bush doubled the federal debt while the GOP quietly said not a word. Obama has increased the federal debt by about 55% so far and the GOP hypocritcally screams as if it's the end of the nation. (Note - that's exactly what the GOP claimed Social Security, then 30 years later Medicare would do - destroy the country.)
- Bush went from a balanced budget to a final deficit of $1.4 trillion dollars. Obama has steadily reduced the annual deficit to where FY2013's estimate now looks to be as low as $600 billion or so (final numbers not yet in).
- The last fiscally responsible Republican? Ike, who also warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, to which the GOP appears bound at the hip now.
Neither party is lily pure and Republicans who keep pointing at Abe Lincoln need to study the history of the last 50 years to see how far from the party of Lincoln the GOP has fallen.
If you step back objectively and look at the fiscal facts of the last 13 years specifically, the big spending party is the GOP. The more fiscally responsible party is the Democrats right now.
Finally, as for pork barrel attachments, give the president a line item veto. It works in many other modern industrial nations, from Germany to Japan. And if you refuse to grant the line item veto, well, amendments are part of the horse trading in real politics. Issues, as much as I would wish otherwise, never occur in a vacuum.
