An article
My opinion by Jay Ambrose, formerly with Scripps-Howard, appeared in my local paper a few days ago. Although I rarely read anything by Republicans, the subtitle intrigued me: "First the Democratic Party left me; now the GOP is, too." I kept reading because I was interested in his reasons for becoming a Republican after being raised "by staunchly Democratic parents."
At one time Ambrose believed that the Democratic Party "stood for principles -- particularly, individual freedom, racial equality and helping the poor ," but affirmative action ("using skin color as a means of favoring some against others") changed his mind.
Ambrose also came to think that Democratic legislation hurts business and the economy, and that Democrats "wink at the dissolution of marriage among the underclass," are against school vouchers, encourage class warfare, belittle individualism, and favor vast "futile" social programs.
So he became a Republican, but...
Once again, though, a party is leaving me, most dramatically through record federal spending that in ways gross and subtle contradicts the party's own best instincts, its promises, its past and its integrity. You do not stop the federal government's wild, clumsy dance by rewarding the performance with still more billions of dollars, and you do not serve the nation at large with endless favors for congressional districts.
There's more -- for instance, Republican support in Congress for President Bush's worst errors, such as his programs for Medicare drugs and farm subsidies, and lack of support for his best initiatives, such as reforming Social Security with private investment accounts.
What keeps Ambrose in the Republican Party?
In the end, I still trust Republicans more than Democrats, whose defeatism could wreck us in the war on terror and whose European-style, semi-socialist urging for welfare-state enlargements could make another France out of us, a once proud land due for lick-boot humiliation. But I do not trust them very much.
Ambrose seems a typical Republican, but perhaps we can hope he will stay home this fall in disgust and not vote.