My parents are Cuban and migrated to this country in the early 70's for political reasons. My father is a staunch anti-communist, and a die-hard member of the Republican. I have been a member of the Republican party since 1992 (I voted for Clinton that year), but I've been seriously contemplating leaving the party. The following 5 reasons are most to blame for my disgruntlement towards the GOP.
(The following list is in no particular order).
1. The George W. Bush Era:
The Republican Party has certainly changed since the Barry Goldwater/Reagan era, and President George Walker Bush will forever be the face of that change. His era of rule featured the following gems: TARP, Increased federal spending [1], Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme court, failure to privatize social security, and a host of other hits. And no, Iraq, Gitmo, and "torture" is not on my list. My disdain for the presidency of George W. Bush is mainly due to his utter contempt toward fiscal conservatism, and his adherence to collective policies toward the end of his administration .
2. Arlen Specter:
My contempt for the tool that is Arlen Specter could not possibly grow any bigger. The senator from Pennsylvania has a long history of upsetting conservatives within the GOP on such topics as: Abortion, The Clinton Impeachment, and some health care measures [2]. While I do disagree with his stance on abortion, my disdain for Mr. RINO himself are due to the following reasons:
• His 46 % rating (lifetime) by the AFL-CIO. His rating was 64 % in 2008 [3]
• Mr. Specter is a fan of bailouts. He voted 'Yes' on The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Obama's bailout), voted 'Yes' on The Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act of 2008, and voted 'Yes on The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Bush's bailout).
Need some the tax payers money? Specter is your guy, the louse.
3.Talk Radio Personalities:
Talk radio is a major influence within the conservative movement (shocking, I know). Although such "conservative" radio personalities as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Mark Levin are not directly affiliated with the GOP, they are as much a part of it as Moveon.org, Dailykos.com, and Air America are apart of the Democratic Party. It's a new age in politics.
Yes, my political interests are within the same spectrum as the above mentioned personalities, however my anger with them comes from their lack of venom, and fury they show the GOP (although less with Beck than the others). They do criticize the GOP from time to time but it is tame compared to how they speak of the Democratic Party. These personalities should take note of how Michael Savage does things. Mr. Savage has called congressional Republicans "gangsters", and even called President Bush "a fiscal socialist".
I may disagree with some of Michael Savage's stance on certain issues, but no one can call him a shrill for the Republican Party. Can the same be said for Hannity or Limbaugh?
4. "Cronyism, Nepotism, Rascalism":
Homer Stokes, a reform candidate running from governor of Mississippi in the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou", had a popular phrase that he would use to describe Pappy O'Daniel, the incumbent: "Four more years of cronyism! Nepotism! Rascalism! Of service to the interests". Yes, it does sound like Washington, doesn't it? The Republicans had their own issues with rascalism. Here's yet another list.
• Florida Congressman Mark Foley and his sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages with former pages[4].
• Jack Abramoff's, a former Republican lobbyist, scandal in where he was found "guilty of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials.[5]
• Randy "Duke" Cunningham, former congressman from California, plead guilty to bribery charges in 2005.[6]
And a host of others....
5. Embracing Keynesianism :
If there is anything that draws my ire these days it's the Keynesian school of economics. One of the tenets of Keynesianism is the state creates policies in order to stabilize a "bad business cycle"[7]. An obvious example of this was the wasting of over 700 billion by Bush with the first bailout.
Friedrich August von Hayek, Nobel Prize winner in economics in 1974 and a very influential figure in the Austrian School of economics was a great critic of Keynesianism. He stated that:
Keynesian policies to combat unemployment would inevitably cause inflation, and that to keep unemployment low, the central bank would have to increase the money supply faster and faster, causing inflation to get higher and higher. Hayek’s thought, which he expressed as early as 1958, is now accepted by mainstream economists[8]
Hayek also believed the Keynesian policies would lead leads to totalitarian abuses, due to the need for centralized planning. John Keynes, the creator of Keynesianism, surprisingly echoed that concern:
The theory of aggregated production, which is the point of ['The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money'], nevertheless can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state [eines totalen Staates] than the theory of production and distribution of a given production put forth under conditions of free competition and a large degree of laissez-faire."[9]
The fact that Republicans, specifically President Bush and his administration, would embrace such failed fiscally policies is the biggest crime, in my eyes, that they have committed against all people who believe in liberty, limited government, ,and free markets.
I wonder what Barry Goldwater would think about the current state of the GOP if he were alive today. Actually, I think that would put him back into his grave.
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