What does the GOP actually believe in?

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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What do the republicans actually believe in? Forget the talk, the talking points
we hear all the time. Let us look at the GOP in terms of actions taken.

big government
Under bill clinton, we had a record surplus. Within 3 year of george bush we had a record
deficit, this under a GOP white house and GOP congress. the size of government exploded under
the 6 year reign of the GOP. If some spending bill was too large, then bush could have vetoed it,
but he didn’t veto a single spending bill during those first 6 years. So clearly big government didn’t bother
anyone in the GOP.

Intrusive government.
A big mantra of the GOP is getting government out of the “people’s business”
and yet that falls by the wayside once you see the actions.
Let us take abortion. If we accept the idea of getting the government out of the people’s business,
then clearly abortion should be legal. If the government mandates who can have or not have, certain
medical procedures, then the government is telling people what to do, it is the government
who decides what can or cannot happen. How is that getting government out of the people’s business?
If the government bans abortion, then the choice is taken out of the people’s hands and the government decides.
That seems to me to be intrusive government, yet the GOP favors this intrusion into people’s lives.
Even if we accept the argument of letting the state’s decide, then we have the intrusion coming from
a smaller faction of the government, the states instead of the feds, but it is still government intrusion.

The same could be said for gay marriage. If we accept the GOP ideal of the" People know best"
then how can we justify banning gay marriage? By banning gay marriage, the GOP mantra becomes,
“the people know best except gay people who can’t be trusted with this sacred institution”
How do we exclude gay people and still be true to the GOP idea that the people know best?
Either the people know best and the government must clear out of their lives or people don’t know
what is best for them and the government must step in? You can’t have it both ways. If two consenting adults
want to get married, upon what right does the government step in and say, no, you don’t know best and we must stop it.
One of the courtesy clerks at work just got married. He is 50 something, he is handicapped, with the mind of a 6 year old
and yet the government allowed him to marry. He can’t drive a car and he scares people when he starts talking to his hands,
yet he can marry and being gay means you can’t get married. The difference? I think you know already.
The gay person cannot be trusted to make a choice and yet someone who is mentally challenged is allowed the same choice.
So how can the GOP justify using the state to prevent people from making personal choices if they favor less government in
people’s lives?

The GOP favors people taking personal responsibility. However, I don’t recall a single person in the Bush administration
ever taking personal responsibility for any action taken during 8 years of office. Not one person took responsibility for
the mess in Katrina, not one person has taken responsibility for the ethnic cleansing that has occurred in Iraq
(the real reason the so called surge worked, the cleansing was done) not one person has taken responsibility for the
massive deficit that will haunt the American people for decades, no one has taken responsibility for the economic crisis
we are in. In the end what the GOP means is everyone else must take personal responsibility, but not us.

If we take the GOP at its word, then it really doesn’t stand for anything, it doesn’t believe in anything.
If the words are different from the actions, how can we trust either one. If someone says one thing and does another,
what that means is they are a hypocrite. So what does the GOP really believe in? Hypocracy. Nothing more, nothing
less. So vote republican next week if you must, but know you are voting for nothing more then hypocrisy.
For that is all the GOP stands for, all it believes in.

Kropotkin

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GOP is a small gruop of people united to promote their private interests.
GOP does not stand for sound economy, the military, our standing in the world, the Constitution and to civil discourse, common decency and competent government.

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You’re preaching to the choir as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been harping on the fact the the Republicans are just Democrats (socialists) lite. The only reason I end up backing the Republicans so often is that at least there’s hope. They’ll cut taxes and not appoint legislate from the bench judges. I am totally fearful of a Democrat takeover. The only thing left to do is to openly trash the Constitution and rewrite it in smoke-filled back rooms with themselves as the Politburo. Hell, redistribute a little more wealth, and the people would approve it overwhelmingly–but that won’t be necessary. The government schools and universities have implemented their indoctrination very well, thanks to all the useful idiots–who’ll be the only ones to be surprised at what happens next.

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The Paineful Truth: They’ll cut taxes and not appoint legislate from the bench judges. I am totally fearful of a Democrat takeover. The only thing left to do is to openly trash the Constitution and rewrite it in smoke-filled back rooms with themselves as the Politburo. Hell, redistribute a little more wealth, and the people would approve it overwhelmingly–but that won’t be necessary."

K: several things here. Let us start with taxes. First of all, there is no proof of any kind cutting taxes helps the country. There are 4 examples
of nationally cutting taxes and not one helped the country. in fact your share of the national debt has increased to over a half a million
dollars and what did you get from cutting taxes? Maybe a few hundred bucks. The benefits of cutting taxes vs the increased debt and
damage that debt causes doesn’t make cutting taxes worth the risk.

It was judicial acts such as “brown vs the Kansas board of education” that help paved the way for
the civil rights movement to really get going. Jim crow laws were legal and it was the judiciary, not the states, not the feds that
made it happen, just as the judiciary is pushing for gay marriage (correctly) because of the fairness doctrine.

AS far as trashing the constitution, george bush and the GOP already did that. It will take decades to fix the disaster
that the GOP made during the last 8 years.

and the last point is, we are democrats, we don’t hold meetings in smoke filled
rooms, bad for the health. :smiley:

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There is no rule barring felons from serving in Congress.

But felons are not allowed to vote.
Roger Clegg, president of the conservative advocacy group Center for Equal Opportunity, neatly puts it, “If you aren’t willing to follow the law, you can’t claim the right to make the law for everyone else.”

But Ted Stevens can run for re-election.
If he wins he will be governing Alaska from prison.

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Or he could resign and Palin, having recently hightailed her Gucci-clad behind (presuming she decides to keep the damned clothes as small compensation for the whole humiliating thing) back to Alaska, could call a special election and then run for the office herself.

As far as what the Republicans believe in, it depends upon which of the 3 sub-groups you’re talking about:

Neocons: :violence-guntoting:

Theocons: :angelic-halofell:

Corporatecons: :teasing-signhere:

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I’m guessing Bush isn’t the first president to run on a given platform, then do the complete opposite once he gets into office.

But it’s still a shame.

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WInning