As a law student with a now defunct unpaid internship, about the only thing I currently have in abundance is time. It's a veritable embarrassment of riches, chronologically speaking. Thus, I've had some time to muse over several things- Some of these ideas are more well formed than others, but I think they bear discussing, in any case. Follow me, below...
Clearly, this is a partisan group. Kos himself states this site exists to help elect Democrats. Our support for the D's, as well as our opposition to the Republicans, goes without saying. It is a given. That is not to say, however, that it is blindly arrived at. I would like to touch on why I support one party, over the other.
All things being equal, I think each party has it's merits. If our system was working the way it was intended to, it would be healthy to have people representing all of the mainstream positions, including a lot of the moralizing, pro-industry positions I disagree with, involved in the governing process. This lends legitimacy to the process, and compromise helps to ensure that we aren't constantly undoing and redoing the same policies every time there is a changing of the political guard. The idea is to reach some kind of consensus whereby we achieve a goal we all agree must be met, in a way most of us are prepared to accept.
Some times, the Repubs actually have decent ideas. I'm a foreign policy realist- I think of foreign relations as being driven primarily by regional geo-politics, and the drive of each state to achieve the highest possible position in the resulting balance of power. This was a mainstay of Republican foreign policy thinking until the rise of the neocons. It wasn't a perfect idea, and it doesn't fully explain foreign policy the way, say, Newton's Laws describe gravity, but it's not a bad jumping off point.
Similarly, there was a time when a big thing for Republicans was efficiency. It's tough to disagree with getting the most bang for the buck. I might (scrath that: I do) disagree with where to cut the money we spend, but the IDEA, in and of itself, was sensible. In short, the Republicans used to be a party of sane people, albeit with whom I disagree.
No longer so. "xdreux," you're probably thinking "are you a troll, or a plant from Red State? Why talk up the repugs?" To show how far things have devolved. In short, I support Democrats over Republicans, because Republicans have become hypocrites in the name of appearing to adhere to their ideology. Here's the meat; here's why until they openly discuss, and apologize for these things, I will not support anyone who has even the tacit backing of the RNC.
I. The Repugs Are A Bunch Of Moralizing Hypocrites
When the Republican House voted to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998 (if memory serves correctly), it wasn't because of principal. It was a political stunt. As they saw it, Nixon had been unfairly run out of office 25 years earlier, and here was an opportunity to even the score with the Left. Never mind that lying about having had an affair, albeit while under oath, is not the sort of thing the Founders had in mind for impeaching an official (many of our Founders themselves being noted philanderers), impeach the man anyways. And then what? As it turns out, just about every single House Republican leading the charge to impeach Clinton for being unfaithful to his wife and not adhering to the Christian values of our country, were themselves running around on their wives. There's a word for this: hypocrisy. And it infuriates me. There is an easy formula. If there is a republican railing against some vice, then it is nearly certain that conservative is guilty of those very sins. Bill Bennet, noted gambling opponent? Gambling addiction. Ted Haggard, noted homophobe? Sex with male prostitutes. The list goes on. Are Dem's guilty of some of these things too? Yes. But then, we never held ourselves out as being better than the other side for not doing those things.
II. The Repugs Do Not Actually Care About the Constitution.
One thing I hear right wingers say over and over again: We must follow the Constitution! This is, apparently, a firmly held belief amongst the Right. I agree that we should follow it. So, keep the following in mind:
A. 1st Amendment
The first amendment guarantees religious freedom (among other things) as well as separation of church and state. No matter how you try to twist it the words "Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion; or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" seem like pretty clear evidence that this country was founded as a secular state. Thus, if you claim to believe that the US Constitution is paramount, you should not be seeking legal rights to prevent a religious groups from building a mosque near ground zero, or anywhere. Saying one thing, and doing another? Hypocrisy.
B. 14th Amendment, and Immigration
This is a similar argument. The claim that the Constitution must be followed is turned on it's face when right wingers run into this issue. In a technical sense, there is nothing in the Constitution about immigration, but courts for a least a century have viewed the area as the sole provenance of the Federal government. Ok, maybe you can be for the Constitution and for Arizona on this one. Maybe. However: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." You can't claim that you're unquestionably for the Constitution, but children of illegal immigrants, born in the US, are not citizens. The wording is clear. You are hypocrites.
III. Money.
Finally, the repugs are full of shit when it comes to finance, fiscal policy, budgetary policy, tax policy, and anything else having to do with money. This is the one that really gets me. They spend all of their time out of power lambasting high taxes, out of control spending, 'tax-and-spend' Democrats, who 'have never seen a balance sheet in their east cost, ivory tower universities and academies." Never mind, for starters, that any Republican with the backing of the RNC probably went to those very same Universities and Academies. What happens when they campaing on, and win elections based on their supposed fiscal restraint, and know-how? They slash taxes for the rich, and for corporations, driving revenues down (not up, as they claim), don't cut spending, claim the economy will grow out of the deficit, are voted out of office when this doesn't happen, and start the whole cycle all over again. Throw in a financial melt down here or there, and you've basically got Republican Money Policy Plan, 1980- present.
In short, the Republicans are frauds. Time and again for a generation, they've been playing the game in bad faith. They continue to show that anything they claim to believe is said out of either a)perceived opportunity, or b) ideological rigidity. In either case, it is a movement which no longer tolerates any view but it's own, and will stop at nothing to achieve it. Including lying, and purposefully weakening our government, and country, to serve their own agenda. Until that is taken account of I will be suspicious of all things GOP.
This turned out to be much longer than expect. But as a said, time is pretty much the last resource I have any of. Feel free to leave thoughts.