Many years ago in a land called America the Republican minority sought political power. They used many techniques to seek this power, including pointing out the hypocrisy of Democrats in power. I would certainly agree that during that time there certainly existed a group of Democratic politicians that sought power above the good of the American people. Like the old line goes, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This is why an opposition political party is important to balance government.
When I post my thoughts about the current state of our country I am continuously bombarded with the comments referring to the corruption of the Democrats of many years ago. Excuse me, but it really seems that even if the Democrats would like to be corrupt they don't really have the power to do any favors for anyone who would like have a personal law passed for them. I've pointed out that I am a libertarian moderate many times in my posts. Before I witnessed the major incompetence of the Bush administration I was registered as a Libertarian and I did not favor either political party over the other.
I find it quite strange that this large boisterous group of bloggers who comment about the history of corruption of the Democrats can not find it within themselves to see the corruption within the Republican Party. There are many variations of this corruption that is explained away with excuses.
Republicans have been known to preach responsibility, but for some reason these same Republicans believe that making excuses for corruption within their own party is acceptable. I would certainly like to remind these people that making excuses for ones actions is also known as avoiding responsibility. In current times the deception of the Republican Party has been focused of creating phrases that make bad things sound good, and making excuses for not taking responsibility will never be uttered from the lips of any Republican politician, unless they choose to criticize the Democrats of many years ago.
For a striking example of this hypocrisy we can turn our attention to Texas. Tom DeLay ran against 3 Republicans in the Texas primary last week, and he won the nomination with 60% of the vote. Why would any Republican vote for this man, let alone 60% of Republicans in his district? If you consider the history of people who have turned to embrace the Republican Party based on the history of corrupt Democrats. Wouldn't it make sense for the people of Tom DeLay's district to choose another Republican to honestly represent their needs in their district? I am guessing that the Republicans in Tom DeLay's district really don't care whether a politician is corrupt or not. What other conclusion can we come to -- based on these results?
Let's step back from this and try to understand the politics in this area of Texas. These people were told that Republicans cared about the people - compassionate conservatives. These people were told that Democrats were corrupt. These people were told that Republicans care about values. So, people in Tom DeLay's district chose Tom DeLay because he represented these ideas and values. Now, Mr. DeLay went to Washington where he began to learn the system. He found that people would give him money to do favors for them. He organized the K street project that collected lobbyists together that favored corporate interests that wealthy Republicans who owned large portions of American corporations favored. These deep pocket Republicans favored doing away with protections of the American environment, and food supply. These deep pocket Republicans favored doing away with protections of the American workers, and water supply. These deep pocket Republicans favored doing away with protections of the American wildlife, and air supply. After all, those things are too expensive. Tom DeLay found ways to manipulate the laws and break them from time to time in order to get his agenda for these corporations through congress. And in return he got money to make the Republican Party grow. This looks a lot like corruption for the special interests to me, and it is exactly what Tom DeLay's constituents had voted against years ago.
Well, of course Tom Delay isn't the only story that illustrates the disconnection of the voters from reality. The idea that Jack Abromoff was able to pander his corruption to all levels of the Republican Party and the Republicans have only responded to say that there was some evidence that Democrats were taking money as well sounds like an excuse to me. Looking at the number of Democrats and Republicans already caught in this web already shows a disproportionate number of Republicans taking this money. Looking at the size of the bribes also suggests that the Republicans are certainly far more involved in this scandal than Democrats. Of course this would be the case, the Republicans control congress! But the Republicans control congress because they argued that they would correct the corruption problems that they exposed when the Democrats were in control. I would like to point out that this certainly has not happened. In fact, the level of corruption seems to have grown substantially over the reign of the Republicans.
Now, corruption may be a major reason that the new Republicans switched parties. But, another major reason was the size of government. The Republicans spread the propaganda that if they got into power they would cut the size of government. They promised to give tax cuts to everyone as a benefit of the smaller size of government. And, once again the Republicans that now control every branch of government have not made the size of government smaller. They have no excuse, because they have complete control, but government has actually grown over the last five years at a greater rate than under Bill Clinton. Of course everyone got their tax cuts in the mail when the Republicans bought their political capital. However, every American should know that the Republicans borrowed money to make up for those checks. In fact, they have borrowed thousands of dollars per person on your behalf to pay corporations and the wealthy for tax cuts. It will take years to pay off these debts and at some point we won't be able to borrow any more money.
If you add all of this hypocrisy to the incompetence of the Republicans in the White House every American should question the direction of our country and consider the proper solution to this problem.
Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit