Throughout the four years of Bush's mismanagement, there has been one overarching theme throughout -- the Republicans are all about controlling people. Through guilt trips, fear, manipulation of the media, and whisper campaigns, the GOP has created a web of tyranny which is a threat to our freedom as a nation.
Those of us who have engaged in the abortion debates over a woman's right to choose are not surprised by the massive amount of dictatorial behavior engaged in by the administration. That is because we know that Republicans do not defend the fetus out of any regard for its well-being; they do it out of a desire to control the woman and put her back in her place.
Similarly, the GOP engages in turf wars while people are dying in NO not because of any regard for human life, they do so because of their desire to control people.
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Control on abortion
There should be no laws against whether a woman should or shouldn't have an abortion. It is not the government's business to interfere in what is a woman's personal, private decision. And laws against abortion are against good, sound scientific evidence:
- The fetus does not have a cerebral cortex or have the ability to feel pain until the third trimester. That means it does not have an identity and is not human in the same sense that you and I are.
- Even if you accept that the fetus is somehow a live being, we as a society by our actions do not value the fetus in the same way that we value a person. Even James Dobson would not advocate the death penalty for women who have abortions or the doctors who perform them.
- Even if you do not accept #1 and #2, nobody would advocate that I give up my identity and hook myself up to a ventilator so that, say, Gandhi can live and not die.
- Even if you do not accept #1, #2, and #3, you are still making a moral judgement about the woman's decision based on your own religious values and prejudices. The last time I checked, we do not advocate that we establish an official religion. If we were to do that, the next question would be, which denomination?
- Even if you do not accept #1, #2, #3, or #4, the data clearly shows that laws banning abortion do not reduce the number of abortions. However, birth control, sex education, and emergency contraception do.
So, no reasonable person, given this information, can be anti-abortion.
But an amazing thing happens when you try to sell a right-winger on condoms so that fewer people will get pregnant and fewer people will have abortions -- they oppose condom distribution of any kind. This seems incoherent and illogical at first. But when you recall that the Republicans are all about control and not about any kind of regard for the fetus, then their position makes perfect sense -- this is all about controlling the woman and not about protecting the fetus.
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Control over Hurricane Katrina
And, going back to Katrina, the desire to control as many people as possible is what drives the Bush administration, not any kind of desire to run an efficent rescue operation.
--Bush did not immediately call out the National Guard when the governor first declared a disaster because he wanted to control the situation.
--FEMA does not allow resue operations to enter the city because they want to control people.
--Bush refused to accept foreign or UN help because he wants to control people.
--Bush blames the people of New Orleans because it is their fault they are poor. This is because he wants to control people.
--Bush strummed his guitar, hugged John (I'm not knowledgeable) McCain, and yucked it up with wealthy donors because in his mind, nobody tells him when he can begin to take an interest in Katrina. He does it in his own good time.
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Control over the rest of their policies
Furthermore, the goal of control infects everything they dirty their hands on. For instance:
--Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard Perle all wrote the PNAC document advocating preemptive strikes because they wanted to control people.
--Bush invaded Iraq not out of any pity for their people or out of any fear for our safety, but out of a desire to control people.
--Bush engaged in a whisper campaign against both John Kerry and John (I'm not knowledgeable) McCain to play on people's fears and control how they vote.
--Bush passed NCLB not out of any desire to improve education, but to control our schools and turn our children into test-taking robots.
--Bush signed Terri's Law, not because he cared about Terri, but because he wanted to control people.
--Bush forecloses critical debate about his policies by demanding that people trust instead of question.
--Bush controls people by playing on their fears about terrorism and their fears about high gas prices as excuses to stay in Iraq.
--Bush controls people by firing anybody who disagree with him; a recent example is Bunnatine Greenhouse.
--Bush defends his hatchet man, Karl Rove, who will commit treason to discredit people who debunk their lies.
--Bush controls people by forging evidence which will play on people's fears and frighten them into submission.
I am sure that readers will come up with many other examples of how Bush controls people. But the behavior of Bush shows that he does not care about our country, or freedom, or our Constitution, but only in becoming a dictator and a tyrant.
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Progressive Democrats and their values
On the other hand, Progressive Democrats believe in the sanctity of human life. We believe that concern for life does not stop just because it is no longer a fetus. We must display concern for the quality of life from the womb to the tomb.
--We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should never have to worry again about where you will live if disaster strikes.
--We favor a massive investment in the rebuilding of New Orleans so that if you work hard and play by the rules, you will be able to get you life back again.
--We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should never have to have someone peek over your shoulder as you make a personal, private decision about an unwanted pregnancy.
--We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should always be able to earn a living wage.
--We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should never again have to worry about where the money will come from if you get sick.
--We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should never have to worry about high gas prices again.
--We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should never have to worry about your children dying halfway around the globe in an unjust war.
--We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should not have to worry about a self-righteous pharmacist lecturing you about how evil and immoral you are for wanting emergency contraception.
--We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to access the latest stem-cell treatments.
--We believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to live your own life without government interference.
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Voting your hopes and not your fears
Finally, we must move beyond the politics of fear and vote our hopes and dreams. FDR got elected because he inspired millions of people to hope and dream again after the Great Depression struck. He inspired people to save and provide for their children and grandchildren so that they would never have to worry about going broke. And he inspired national sacrifice so that future generations would grow up free and not under Nazi rule.
JFK inspired many young people to get into political activism. He inspired millions of young people to go down to the South and register people to vote. Some of them paid for it with their lives. But our young people were not afraid, because they knew they were building a society in which color of skin would no longer matter.
And Howard Dean inspired many to get involved into politics for the first time. He taught us that we were not helpless in the face of the rising tide of tyranny by the Bush administration. He taught us that we can get involved online, volunteer for a local group or start a new one, and run for office and not leave everything to the Beltway insiders.
We need leaders at all levels who will inspire us to vote our hopes and not our fears. For too long, many of our candidates have failed to inspire America and give us a clear vision. We must change that now.