IT MAKES LITTLE SENSE TO ME!!

The Republican National Convention just ended in Tampa.  The Republican Party has spent three days telling us what they are against!  I wonder if they for anything? Having been raised in a Democratic leaning family, that attended church on a regular basis, we believe in the social contract, that says we should take care of the poor and the sick.

The philosophy of the Republican party of 2012, seems in stark contrast to the Republican party of 2000, when George W. Bush talked about being a compassionate conservative. At the time I thought that was an oxymoron. Is there really anything compassionate about conservatives? The answer is yes.  The Bush administration worked with faith based groups to attempt to take care of the poor and the struggling. They have a philosophy about social security:  they want to privatize it! Again I disagree with the plan. At least  they believed in something. As much as the second Bush Administration is criticized for everything and anything, I applaud them for the compassionate advocacy for the poor.

What does the Republican party of today stand for?  They talk about that they are the party of fiscal responsibility, but are they really?  When George W. Bush took office, the country was on track to have a surplus.  I do not really need to go over this territory again because it has been said over and over. The Tea Party came to power in 2010 with a hatred towards Government! They cheered as the country stood on the fiscal cliff as we discussed a routine increase in the debt ceiling. They unveiled a debt clock at their convention but, failed to talk about that half of the debt on the clock comes from a Republican President and a Republican Congress. Paul Ryan the newly minted Vice Presidential Candidate, in his acceptance speech had the nerve to criticize President Obama on the Simpson/Bowles fiscal plan but, what he did not have the courage to tell you was that he was a member of that fiscal commission, and when it came up in the house he voted against it. Is there anything really intellectual about being dishonest?  That is what Paul Ryan appeared to be in his speech.

Here is a short list of things that they oppose:

They oppose marriage equality, and want to continue to defend the enshrinement of discrimination in the constitution by defending the “Defense of Marriage act” even though courts all around the country continue to rule that it is unconstitutional. Let me ask you a simple question, does the married gay or lesbian couple next door really make your marriage of lesser value? If the value of your marriage is lessened by the gay couple next door, perhaps you need to look inward. How about that couple next door, gay or straight, are they good neighbors? Are they generous to the community? Do they keep their yard in good order? What matters is that they are good neighbors who give back to their community.

They also oppose, abortion, and there is nothing wrong with being pro-life versus pro choice. It is a very personal thing. It is the way they do it, that is dishonest. They rail against the government saying the government wants to run our lives but, if you look across the country they have spent the last two years passing abortion bills, so they do not want government to regulate our finances the environment. They want government to stick its nose into the most personal decision that a woman or a couple can make. It is being a hypocrite.  They are doing this very well. Since 1994 when Mitt Romney opposed Ted Kennedy for the Senate seat in Massachusetts, his position has evolved. At that time we was pro-choice, I guess if he really believed that I don’t understand how the evolved to being pro-life! Was he pandering to the electorate then or is he pandering to the conservative base of today’s Republican party? My mom and I were recently discussing this issue and my mom said, “you are pro-choice because I raised you that way, I am pro-choice because my mother raised me to be that way.” I thought,  WOW, here was a woman who was born in 1910, in a more conservative age but, had become pro-choice. I was fascinated by that whole thing. My mother stated that, “your grandmother remembers a time when abortion was the dirty little secret of the country. It still happened but, unprofessionally. Old ladies with knitting needles and coat hangers, back alley abortionists who did not care about the life of the woman after the procedure. The platform states that they oppose abortion in all cases with no exceptions! No rape exception, no incest exception, and no life of the mother exception! Paul Ryan recently stated, “it doesn’t matter the method of conception its still a life!” He is correct but, to force a woman to give birth to a rapist child seem criminal to me. I just don’t understand or accept that way of thinking or philosophy.

I close with this thought. My grandmother was probably one of the most influential people in my life. I recall a conversation from the 2004 Presidential election. In that conversation a woman who had been a life long Republican decided that she would, for the first time in her life, vote for Democrat! She just did not understand where the party was going. It no longer reflected her values of fiscal conservatism and still supporting the social safety net.