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An Immodest Proposal and Bill of Particulars
One of the strains I've seen running through much of the hysteria in comments that greeted my rather unassuming notion that those of us not happy with the Republican party might consider banding together and using our leverage to attempt to influence both parties - which would of necessity include negotiating with the Democratic party - is that I am various awful things for taking such a step merely over the Schiavo issue.
Of course, that reads my dissatisfaction with the Republicans entirely incorrectly. I'm not happy about the hypocrisy exibited by a supposedly small-government, individual liberty party in cheerfully reaching for the club of government to enforce a different outcome on the Schiavo issue, simply because they don't like the way the current law plays out. It is sadly laughable to watch these people try to claim that what they are doing is not precisely what they excoriate when the left does it to them.
But to construe my efforts as springing solely from Schiavo is to drastically underestimate the causes of my dissatisfaction with the Republicans and George W. Bush. Here are some others:
1. The massive entitlement bill pushed through congress by George W. Bush for prescription drugs.
2. The lard-laden education bill Bush and Ted Kennedy put together and pushed through congress.
3. The deadly combination of establishing huge new permanent expenditures while at the same time cutting taxes, thereby guaranteeing massive new debt for future taxpayers. Anybody who has ever run up significant personal credit card bills, and then tried to pay them off out of current income, knows what I mean.
4. Bush's support of renewing the assault weapons bill. Diehard Bush apologists say that Bush was just spouting politics, that he was actually opposed to the bill, but knew it would never pass - and so felt free to "support" it for political reasons. Well, which is it, then? He didn't support it, and is a public liar and hypocrite for sleazy political gain, or he does support it, in which case he's no friend of the Second Amendment? I vote for number two - as a religious man, he is not suppose to lie to the nation, and within his limits, I think he tries to live up to that.
5. Bush's administration has refused to move forward, in fact has impeded, one of the most effective steps he could take to protect American air traffic: Against the wishes of the pilots themselves, he has blocked any realistic effort to let those pilots bear arms in their cockpits.
6. Bush's idiotic refusal to profile suspect groups in airports and elsewhere has led to stupidities like strip-searching wheel-chair bound grannies, and does nothing to increase traveler safety. If anything, it puts all of us at greater risk.
7. For those who mentioned the horrors of the Clinton administration, to wit: the sale of pardons, they should also know that not only did the Bush administration cover up or prevent entirely an investigation of the vandalism and thefts committed by the Clintonistas on their departure from the White House, he within the past month also covered up the results of the investigation of Clinton's pardon fire sale.
8. Bush's apparent intentions to ram through congress immigration legislation that will, in effect, post facto legalize millions of illegal aliens, and permit the influx of millions more who will initally be "legal," but will morph into illegals as soon as their time limits are up: all apparently in search of votes and support from the huge businesses that depend on illegal immigrants, at the expense of jobs for legal immigrants and American citizens.
9. Bush's gross mismanagement of Fallujah in Iraq, that needlessly cost dozens of American lives, and for a time threatened the entire future of the Iraqi experiment in democracy.
10. The recently revealed first instincts of Bush's FEC to impose draconian measures per the CFR bill Bush signed after he said he did not support it. Bush's signing of that measure is, in my opinion, more than sufficient grounds for his impeachment.
11. Of course, the massive Republican hypocrisies of Schiavo.
There are many others, but these will do for starters. The Republicans are no longer the party of small, limited government, fiscal sanity, states and individual rights, and the Constitution. In their own way, they have become as bloated, hypocritical, invasive, and spendthrift as much of the worst the Democrats have to offer.
If you think there must be some alternative, I am with you, and I would like to find one. That means we have to create an interest group of moderates and libertarians who become crucial to the balance of power. If we hold the keys to the electability of candidates from the right and the left, then both sides must listen to us.
Am I suggesting the formation of a new party? No, not at the moment. But we do have tools available to us, most especially the Internet and blogs. Moveon.org, as much as I dislike its goals, has perfected these as a method of exerting enormous influence. It has, in effect, taken over the machinery of the Democratic party. What they did, we can do as well, and I am proposing that we do it.
If you have suggestions how best we can proceed, please outline them in the comments, or email me. Citizens' movements have a long and honorable history in this country, and it is easier than ever before to start one. Let's hear from you.
William Joyce said:I agree with Bill Quick, whoever he is. We need to bring the troops home from Iraq and put them on the U.S./Mexico border, where they're needed to protect our country. The amnesty is INSANITY. We need to stop the crazy federal spending and legislation on things the federal government has no business with, like education. And I even agree re: GOP hypocrisy with the Schiavo case.
I think the only things I agree with Bush on are tort reform and the wrongness of gay marriage.
William Joyce said:I agree with Bill Quick, whoever he is. We need to bring the troops home from Iraq and put them on the U.S./Mexico border, where they're needed to protect our country. The amnesty is INSANITY. We need to stop the crazy federal spending and legislation on things the federal government has no business with, like education. And I even agree re: GOP hypocrisy with the Schiavo case.
I think the only things I agree with Bush on are tort reform and the wrongness of gay marriage.
