A Republican and a Democrat are driving their cars along a road when they come to a fork.
The fork to the right is the road to freedom, liberty and limited government. The fork to the left is the road to large government, collectivism and limited personal freedom. The Democrat turns on his left blinker and turns left. The Republican turns on his right blinker and turns left.
I can’t take credit for this little story, which I lifted from my friend Jim’s Facebook page, but it does ring true. Many people who consider themselves a Republican aren’t actually Conservative at all. This has led the Republican Party into extreme disarray over the last few years, and this trend among elected officials is the cause for the great Republican ousting in 2006. Republicans didn’t learn their lesson from that election and nominated a man for president whose only conservative thought is on the designs of his neckties.
While I was in charge of the College Republicans of Tech, we invited a Lubbock mayoral candidate, who I’d prefer not to name, to come in, and despite city elections being non-partisan, he openly admitted he considered himself a “redneck Republican.”
The man later got elected and spent his single term in office doing his best to spend as much taxpayer money as he possibly could on things that were of no benefit to those paying for them.
We see this regularly from people who can generally be referred to under the moniker “RINO” or Republican in name only. This runs rampant here in Lubbock, often from those who could be lumped in with the religious right, who shield themselves under the name of God in their promotion of increased government intervention.
The vitriol that spewed forth from some religious groups about the alcohol election was amazing, and you can bet the majority of those opposing the economic freedoms of allowing alcohol sales in the city would consider themselves Republican.
Taking into account the average partisan leaning of Lubbock voters, it is also probably true for many of those who supported wasting taxpayer monies on soccer fields for their kids this week. Luckily, 58 percent of Lubbock voters saw through their pathetic argument of, “Won’t somebody please think of the children?” and chose not to take out an extra $9 million of debt on something with very little hope of financial return.
In recent national history, the trends weren’t much better. The George W. Bush administration championed the first $700 billion bailout bill to help businesses that didn’t deserve it and in turn did a disservice to similar lenders who handled their businesses properly. It kept the smaller, more responsible lenders from having the opportunity to be rewarded for their efforts by taking over clients from the businesses that should have failed.
It sent a message that has been warmly embraced under the socialist blanket of the Obama administration. They’ve made it fine for companies deemed “too big to fail” to be irresponsible with their businesses and have a governmental safety net when everything inevitably goes wrong.
I still consider myself a Republican, albeit a very libertarian-leaning one. It’s extremely difficult though to not be annoyed at how the party’s elected officials continue the slow march to the middle and the loss of freedoms that comes with their failures, economic or otherwise. Government by itself doesn’t have to be considered an evil, but the further it gets from building roads, coining money and providing military defense, the worse off the citizens are.
Granted, that’s an extremely barebones description, but there is an inverse correlation between the size of government and the citizens’ personal freedoms. I don’t believe I need an oppressive government taking a hefty chunk of what little money I’ve earned and wasting it on numerous and complicated bureaucracies, whose sole existence is to devise ways to further remove more money and freedoms.
There may be hope on the horizon, at least on the national front. Republicans won key gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey this week, which could be seen as the beginning of a rejection of the Obama administration’s policies. Republicans now also have a uniting issue against the Democrats’ ridiculous health care bill, which could be used as a catalyst for the party as a whole to put away the bipartisan nonsense and begin fighting to limit government again.
Former Arizona Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, author of “Conscience of a Conservative,” summed it up perfectly: “A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.” Vote to elect real Conservatives, and we might have a chance to get our party and freedoms back.
Perhaps one day we will be fortunate enough to see a rise in people who think like us- or really, see them represented. Government is not made to provide for its people, as the Democrats believe. It isn't made to uphold morals, as the Republicans believe. It's made to protect the rights of its people, and THAT'S IT. And through all my searching, the only people really advocating that are the Libertarians.
This summer, I went to a few Tea Party events, and my family came along. While in the car, my dad started talking about how he wanted to "bring the Libertarians back into the Republican party." I was baffled. That's like trying to bring Christians back into Judaism. Libertarians contained as a sub-group of Republicans might as well not exist. Within that group, we are silenced and called kooks, extremists, insane (see Ron Paul). So many people say that a 3rd-party vote is a waste; but no matter how small that voice may be right now, at least we HAVE a voice! At least we're saying what we mean and not mumbling, "Yeah, I guess," along with some other counter-intuitive group.George,
Please say something intelligent. The rest of us are waiting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------The NationRace, Ethnicity & ReligionRacism & Discrimination--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dixiecrats and the GOP By Diane McWhorter
This article appeared in the January 27, 2003 edition of The Nation.January 9, 2003
Take ActionWrite a LetterSubscribe NowText SizeAAA.Why should anyone have been surprised that the senator who led the Republican Party of 2002 paid homage to the States Rights Party of 1948? Those Dixiecrats fatally extolled by Trent Lott at the hundredth birthday celebration of their onetime presidential nominee Strom Thurmond were very much a template for today's Republican Party. Lott's expedient demotion does not change the core affinity between the two parties--a kinship ignored in the year-end controversy over whether the senator from Mississippi is a segregationist. Sure, segregation (aka "states' rights") was the centerpiece of the Dixiecrats' platform. But the exploitation of race has never been an end in itself. Then and now, it is an emotional means to a pragmatic political and economic goal: The key objective shared by Republicans and Dixiecrats is a government that's a passive referee overseeing a status quo of unfettered free enterprise rather than a dynamic agent of social progress.