The Sunshine Empire

When children rebel against their parents, the rejection can take many forms. During my formative years I had friends who would sneak out at night, grow their hair long and even took various drugs. I took a different path to defy my parents who are lifelong Democrats, by joining the Republican party. I’ve since renounced the ways of the dark side but at the time I had principled reasons for joining the party of Lincoln.

The Republican party was the force behind the abolishing slavery in this country and has always touted the intrinsic value of spreading Democracy across the world. Republicans have traditionally supported civilian rule across the world (with the exception of Nixon and Reagan) and the ideal that elections should be respected. They believed in balancing a budget and living within our means, and told us that Christian beliefs should be more a part of how the country should be governed. All of these stated beliefs and the track record of the party has me baffled by the current course and attitude of the conservative movement and the Republican party.

With their loss in the 2006 and 2008 elections Republicans and conservatives have taken a drastically different track from these values. The budget being the most glaring flip-flop that comes to the fore when it comes to Republicans. Republicans came to power in Congress in part by promising a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. They asked voters to suspend disbelief and just forget that Ronald Reagan had never balanced a budget and tripled the national debt. But with the help of Democratic President Bill Clinton the budget was balanced and surpluses were abundant. Yet when the party came to control both houses of Congress and the White House their attitude changed. They rightly point to the wars that erupted after 9/11 but one of those was by pure choice and for the first time in human history the Republican government of the United States cut taxes during a war. That has never been done in human history. When the deficit burst as expected (still haven’t seen cutting taxes pay the deficit after thirty years guys) former Vice President Dick Cheney famously stated “deficits don’t matter.” Nobody should be surprised that with a Democrat in the Oval Office, deficits suddenly do matter again.

President Barack Obama’s election has surprisingly caused other drastic changes in the Republican party and conservative movement. Despite telling us that democracy was God’s gift to humanity and an intrinsic right of all peoples, many prominent Conservatives now argue against woman’s suffrage and the 1964 voting rights act. It seems that voting for the wrong person makes you less qualified to have a vote based on your gender. If voting stupidly is grounds to lose your franchise then I would lose my vote based on being a white male in the south (but technically I don’t consider Florida part of the South). But no, they don’t stop there folks. Major conservative websites now openly fantasize about a military coup to overthrow the democratically elected President of the United States, and joke about armed insurrection against the government founded by Washington and Jefferson.

Yet the most curious seems to be the most religious of the lot seem to be the most hostile to the demands of Christian faith. Jesus implored his followers to love they neighbor. In Matthew there is the directive to heal the sick. But most seem to be hostile to that attitude instead opting for a “it’s not my responsibility so screw the sick.” There are those who say that since the words health care are not in the Constitution that it’s essentially unconstitutional. Well the word God is not in the Constitution either and I don’t think they’ll argue that the good Lord is unconstitutional.