This has been weighing heavily on my mind in recent weeks, and it’s time to deal with it in public. It is my considered opinion that the Republican party has abdicated its responsibility and corrupted itself to the point where it may no longer be salvageable. That it may well be time to abandon the GOP and form another party that is dedicated to responsible governing.
I say this for several reasons, but let’s start with how elected Republicans are behaving. I mean, sure, we hear them berating Democrats for everything under the sun, but how do THEY behave? How do THEY handle the power that exists in our overly-large central government?
I covered this in another blog post, but recently the Republican leadership of a subcommittee decided to arrest a liberal journalist who wanted to film their open-to-the-public committee meeting. Why? Because the journalist wanted to use this footage in a documentary that went against what the Republicans on the Committee believed. In other words, they abused their power for their own ends, ignoring things like the First Amendment and the principle of open government. Isn’t that what they repeatedly attack Democrats for allegedly doing?
And this isn’t an isolated incident, I’m sad to say. Republicans are showing again and again that, despite the crowd-pleasing rhetoric that they want to limit the size and power of government, they are very comfortable, even happy, to use that power for their own ends. They CLAIM to want to limit the power of government, to reduce spending, and to rein in a government that is too involved in too many areas of our lives… but do they really mean it? Perhaps a few do, but not the majority of elected officials, and not the leadership of the GOP itself. They LIKE that power, and they want to maintain their access to it.
And the way they are behaving regarding elections these days is not only disgusting, it’s downright dishonest. I mean, think about it…
I’ve heard for the past four elections how absolutely critical it is that we get a Republican elected, because the Democrat candidate (fill in the blank) is the devil incarnate and will destroy our nation as we know it. They use this to encourage us to “come together” behind “whoever the nominee” eventually is. And WHY do they do this? Because they know most of us wouldn’t vote for the people they want as our candidate, and they must win.
They know we won’t support their choices, because fiscal conservatism has disappeared from the Republican party. The people we refer to as conservatives today, such as John McCain, Mitt Romney, and George Bush, we would have once called moderates. And those we call moderates today would once have been called liberals. And the liberals? They used to be the extreme left wing of the party.
As we’ve seen in recent elections, the Democrats tend to nominate candidates who are more and more liberal. The Republicans see this and decide to nominate… a moderate candidate. Why? Because the fiscally conservative candidates “can’t win,” so we have to go with a moderate. In effect, this has shifted the entire spectrum to the left, to the point where a candidate who says we shouldn’t spend our nation into bankruptcy is considered a raving, right-wing lunatic.
Victory for the Republican party has come to mean winning at the ballot box. It doesn’t really matter what the candidate believes or how he will govern. As long as he is a Republican, then the party has won a victory. And that victory has come to be the end-all be-all for the party, trumping such mundane trivialities as wise governing.
The entire nominating process for the Republican party has been subverted. Exit polls for every election contest so far has shown that “electability” is the single most important criteria considered by voters. And the GOP leadership has encouraged this for years. How many have heard somebody say that ANY Republican is better than Obama? Do they seriously want us to believe that having an ‘R’ next to their name is reason enough for us to choose them? Are they insane?
In years past, the primary process was the time for voters to examine the qualities of the various candidates in order to choose the one whom we believed was most qualified at this time to be President of the United States. We used to use this process to select a man we believed would govern wisely and well. But with this new focus on “win at any cost,” we don’t do that anymore. And if we don’t look at the qualities of the candidates now, during the primaries, when will we do so?
Under the system as it now stands, we never do.
With “electability” as the most important quality for a candidate, this means that we don’t CARE what the candidate is like. We’ll elect a liberal if he’s the nominee… just as long as he’s got that ‘R’ next to his name that means we won. The Republican party would count it as a victory if a raging liberal was elected President. That is, if that candidate was fielded by the Republican party. Don’t believe me? They were ready to do it with John McCain, and they’re ready to do it with Mitt Romney.
The nominating process has to be the point where we select the qualities of the candidate, and if we don’t, then how do we ever expect to get a good candidate? With our current structure, we can’t.
For these reasons, and other related reasons that I haven’t iterated here, I think it is time for us to seriously consider abandoning the Republican party. They don’t care about the Constitution or fiscally conservative governing, all they care about is winning elections and wielding power. So why should we stay with them, since they will not represent the things we want them to, the things they claim they do?
Whether we shift to an already existing third party (like the Libertarians or the Constitution Party) or we start a brand new party of our own, it is past time we shed the baggage of so-called “leaders” who are more interested in using the system to acquire power for their own ends than they are in wisely governing our nation. It is time to jettison this dead weight and form a new, leaner party dedicated to doing what the Republicans have grown too fat and lazy to do.
The sooner we realize that the Republican Party, as it stands today, is as much the enemy of good governance as is the Democrat party, the sooner we can start trying to effect real reform. If we decide against this course of action, if we decide we’re okay with approving pre-selected “moderates” or “liberals” to run as Republican candidates and ultimately fail to fix our problems, then we share the responsibility for this nation’s demise.
So, what do you say? Are you ready to do what we clearly have to do?
UPDATE: Here's an article showing that three of the four Presidential candidates would actually INCREASE the federal debt over the next decade. It's a good illustrator of my point, and another reason to ditch the GOP.
http://reason.com/blog/2012/02/23/new-report-on-gop-primary-contenders-say?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28Reason+Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29
"The remaining trio of conventional GOP presidential wannabes—Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich—aren’t serious about cutting spending, or about truly improving the nation's long-term fiscal path. They’re invested in the rhetoric of debt reduction, but not the policies that would make it happen."
Read the rest...
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Outrage: US Politicians Arrest Journalists
Ladies and gentlemen, I haven’t posted in a while because my work and theatrical performance schedule is packed, but this one is important.
When the Republicans took the House in 2010, many people were ecstatic. I advised caution, telling them that too often the GOP is just like the Democrats, using government power for their own purposes when it suits them. Many of my Republican friends have told me repeatedly that the GOP is the only chance we have to stop the Democrat-led erosion of our civil rights.
If I told those friends that a Congressional panel had not only ejected a camera crew from an open and public committee meeting but also had them cuffed, arrested, and led away by capitol police, I know what they’d say. They’d point to this as a perfect example of why we need more Republicans in office.
The only problem is that this incident, which occurred on February 1, featured the REPUBLICANS arresting the journalists and the Democrats protesting the action.
You read that correctly: in this case, the fascist, freedom-hating, secrecy-desiring politicians were those who my Republican friends claim are fighting for our rights and freedoms. Allow me to go into detail.
I first found this story on the Huffington Post, but it was also confirmed by other sources, such as the Los Angeles Times and Politico. Here’s what happened.
On February 1, 2012, the US House subcommittee on Science, Space and Technology was meeting to discuss the process of “fracking”, i.e. the practice of injecting high-pressure water with some chemicals added into shale beds to fracture the formations and release pockets of oil or natural gas. A gentleman by the name of Joshua Fox was in attendance with his film crew.
Now we have to talk a moment about Mr. Fox, because he produced a documentary called “Gasland” that was critical of fracking. As you might imagine, many Republican proponents of the process were less than happy with the documentary, and have criticized it publicly. But Mr. Fox wanted to cover this meeting for possible inclusion in a future documentary.
So there was Mr. Fox with a small camera crew, intending to film this open meeting of the subcommittee. The meeting was already being filmed by CNN, but Fox wanted to control his own camera shots. But there was a problem. You see, he didn’t have a permit to film. Oh, he’d TRIED to get a permit, but he’d been denied. He claims it's because the ranking GOP leadership disagreed with his politics. And since credentials and permits are often dispensed without deference to the First Amendment, he may have a point. I mean, the goal of the permit is to prevent dozens of crews from crowding the meeting space, but with only their camera present that wasn’t much of an issue.
So there he was with a camera in a meeting that was open to the public, and the Republican leadership objected. They objected so strenuously that Fox was cuffed and arrested by Capitol Police. The incident, ironically, was filmed by a staffer using his cell phone. So CNN’s camera was okay, a staffer’s cell phone camera was okay, but Fox’s crew was so over the top that he just had to go to jail.
On the cell-phone footage, Democrats can be heard urging the Republicans to stop the arrest and let him film the open-to-the-public meeting. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
So, Republicans are the ones who want open government? Not this time, because it would have conflicted with their politics. Republicans are the ones who care about our freedoms and rights? Again, not this time.
What my friends miss is that the Republican delegation in Congress is made up of PEOPLE. And many Congressional candidates run for office because they’re attracted to the power of the office. That means they like to exercise that power… Which is just what they decry the Democrats for doing.
It is with great sadness that I report to my friends that, once again, we have proof that Republicans like government power and are just as prone to abuse their authority as are Democrats. If you’re looking to the Republican party to protect our freedoms and rein in government abuses, you will be thoroughly disappointed.
I looked, and I was unable to find statements from Boehner or any Presidential candidate that chastised the subcommittee members that imprisoned a journalist for trying to record a meeting that was both open to the public and being filmed by one other crew. Not one. And to quote one of my favorite movies of all time, “the maxim under the law is that silence betokens assent.”
The sad truth is that Republicans are in the game of gaining and using the political power that comes with a large, powerful government by claiming to want a smaller, less intrusive government. It’s sneaky and dishonest… at least with Democrats we KNOW they want an all-powerful central government that can control most aspects of our private lives, because they’ll happily TELL US THAT! With Republicans, the goal seems similar, but they’re lying to us about it.
I don’t care if you disagree with Mr. Fox’s political views, he has the absolute right to hold those views and to make as many documentaries as he likes. And politicians have no business arresting him for trying to film public meetings.
This doesn’t surprise me… and I apologize to my Republican friends if I’ve hurt them with this revelation. But it is the truth, and we need to recognize it.
If you trust either of the two major political parties to fight for us and our rights, you will be disappointed. There is no power for them in doing that, and they want that power. They like to use that power.
The sooner we all recognize this, the sooner we can start looking for a viable alternative that might, just MIGHT try to do what the Republicans are falsely claiming they want to do. Before it’s too late… assuming it’s not ALREADY too late.
For those who'd like to read the news stories on this, here are the links:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-gasland-director-fox-arrested-filming-house-subcommittee-20120201,0,4337363.story
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72326.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/house-republicans-order-j_n_1246971.html?mrefid
And here's a link to Mr. Fox's response to the incident:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/02/01/416951/gasland-director-josh-foxs-statement-on-his-fracking-hearing-arrest/?mobile=nc
Read the rest...
When the Republicans took the House in 2010, many people were ecstatic. I advised caution, telling them that too often the GOP is just like the Democrats, using government power for their own purposes when it suits them. Many of my Republican friends have told me repeatedly that the GOP is the only chance we have to stop the Democrat-led erosion of our civil rights.
If I told those friends that a Congressional panel had not only ejected a camera crew from an open and public committee meeting but also had them cuffed, arrested, and led away by capitol police, I know what they’d say. They’d point to this as a perfect example of why we need more Republicans in office.
The only problem is that this incident, which occurred on February 1, featured the REPUBLICANS arresting the journalists and the Democrats protesting the action.
You read that correctly: in this case, the fascist, freedom-hating, secrecy-desiring politicians were those who my Republican friends claim are fighting for our rights and freedoms. Allow me to go into detail.
I first found this story on the Huffington Post, but it was also confirmed by other sources, such as the Los Angeles Times and Politico. Here’s what happened.
On February 1, 2012, the US House subcommittee on Science, Space and Technology was meeting to discuss the process of “fracking”, i.e. the practice of injecting high-pressure water with some chemicals added into shale beds to fracture the formations and release pockets of oil or natural gas. A gentleman by the name of Joshua Fox was in attendance with his film crew.
Now we have to talk a moment about Mr. Fox, because he produced a documentary called “Gasland” that was critical of fracking. As you might imagine, many Republican proponents of the process were less than happy with the documentary, and have criticized it publicly. But Mr. Fox wanted to cover this meeting for possible inclusion in a future documentary.
So there was Mr. Fox with a small camera crew, intending to film this open meeting of the subcommittee. The meeting was already being filmed by CNN, but Fox wanted to control his own camera shots. But there was a problem. You see, he didn’t have a permit to film. Oh, he’d TRIED to get a permit, but he’d been denied. He claims it's because the ranking GOP leadership disagreed with his politics. And since credentials and permits are often dispensed without deference to the First Amendment, he may have a point. I mean, the goal of the permit is to prevent dozens of crews from crowding the meeting space, but with only their camera present that wasn’t much of an issue.
So there he was with a camera in a meeting that was open to the public, and the Republican leadership objected. They objected so strenuously that Fox was cuffed and arrested by Capitol Police. The incident, ironically, was filmed by a staffer using his cell phone. So CNN’s camera was okay, a staffer’s cell phone camera was okay, but Fox’s crew was so over the top that he just had to go to jail.
On the cell-phone footage, Democrats can be heard urging the Republicans to stop the arrest and let him film the open-to-the-public meeting. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
So, Republicans are the ones who want open government? Not this time, because it would have conflicted with their politics. Republicans are the ones who care about our freedoms and rights? Again, not this time.
What my friends miss is that the Republican delegation in Congress is made up of PEOPLE. And many Congressional candidates run for office because they’re attracted to the power of the office. That means they like to exercise that power… Which is just what they decry the Democrats for doing.
It is with great sadness that I report to my friends that, once again, we have proof that Republicans like government power and are just as prone to abuse their authority as are Democrats. If you’re looking to the Republican party to protect our freedoms and rein in government abuses, you will be thoroughly disappointed.
I looked, and I was unable to find statements from Boehner or any Presidential candidate that chastised the subcommittee members that imprisoned a journalist for trying to record a meeting that was both open to the public and being filmed by one other crew. Not one. And to quote one of my favorite movies of all time, “the maxim under the law is that silence betokens assent.”
The sad truth is that Republicans are in the game of gaining and using the political power that comes with a large, powerful government by claiming to want a smaller, less intrusive government. It’s sneaky and dishonest… at least with Democrats we KNOW they want an all-powerful central government that can control most aspects of our private lives, because they’ll happily TELL US THAT! With Republicans, the goal seems similar, but they’re lying to us about it.
I don’t care if you disagree with Mr. Fox’s political views, he has the absolute right to hold those views and to make as many documentaries as he likes. And politicians have no business arresting him for trying to film public meetings.
This doesn’t surprise me… and I apologize to my Republican friends if I’ve hurt them with this revelation. But it is the truth, and we need to recognize it.
If you trust either of the two major political parties to fight for us and our rights, you will be disappointed. There is no power for them in doing that, and they want that power. They like to use that power.
The sooner we all recognize this, the sooner we can start looking for a viable alternative that might, just MIGHT try to do what the Republicans are falsely claiming they want to do. Before it’s too late… assuming it’s not ALREADY too late.
For those who'd like to read the news stories on this, here are the links:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-gasland-director-fox-arrested-filming-house-subcommittee-20120201,0,4337363.story
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72326.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/house-republicans-order-j_n_1246971.html?mrefid
And here's a link to Mr. Fox's response to the incident:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/02/01/416951/gasland-director-josh-foxs-statement-on-his-fracking-hearing-arrest/?mobile=nc
Read the rest...
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