This is a point that has long been made by Bill Maher (and I'm sure he made it much better than I'm about to), but if Republicans hate government so much, then why do they want to run it so bad? Ronald Reagan famously said that"Government isn't the answer, it's the problem". Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, has been all over the news this week saying that the government is too dumb to manage the car industry and that investments in infrastructure are unnecessary. Idiot number one, Sean Hannity, goes on and on and on every night about how dumb congressional leaders are and get's all his Republican guests to nod their heads in agreement. Well if government is so bad and spooky and evil then how come you keep asking us to put you in charge? With that kind of mindset how do you expect to get anything positive done? By being Dr No like Senator Shelby of Alabama? If it is your fundamental core belief that government is the problem, then that means it's your fundamental core belief that government has no solutions, therefore you have no solutions, therefore get the fuck out. All you ever want is less regulation, less gun laws, and lower taxes, you know that "get government out of my way" mentality. But when it comes to social issues that don't affect you, you want to stick your nose and opinions in. No gays, no civil rights, no privacy, and of course more Jesus (the angry judgemental one, not the friendly forgiving one).
And another thing that goes along with this...how come everytime someone dares question our armed forces or the mission they are on you are immediatly accused of being "unamerican" and not supporting the troops, but yet Republicans can get away with bashing the government every single day of their lives and they are "patriots" for doing so? Hell, for 6 of the last 8 years they controlled all three branches of government, ran up massive amounts of spending, while at the same time railing against government incompetency and federal spending.
They have become a party that opposes everything and stands for nothing. And like the great Republican wordsmith Aaron Tippin once said, "You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything".
2 comments:
I do see your point, but more often than not I'm a firm believer in laissez-faire policy with minimal government intervention. Without diving into it that much, a big component of Republican orthodoxy is the idea of a free market. As you can see, governments around the world tend to have a history of blowing huge amounts of money on programs that don't work as they're intended, and end up being more or less corrupt policy to line the pockets of campaign financers.
Oh I agree, the government can't be the solution for everything. But I think that they do have a role to play. And I believe that real Republicans would agree with that. But these modern day neo-cons believe that the government has no role except to regulate social behavior and fight wars. There is a middle ground that has to be found between Ron Paul's no government approach and Dennis Kucinich's all government approach. I think that's one of the reasons that so many Republicans backed Obama, because he has some of that Republican pragmatism in him.
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