A Referendum against
the Republican Party*

It is time to speak out against the campaign tactics, strategies and agendas of the National Republican Party. While the Democratic Party has sometimes copied these tactics, their efforts cannot compare with the brazen spin, innuendo and outright lies of the Republicans. They have cheapened and undermined our entire political system for far too long. The American people need to condemn these tactics and punish those who use them by withdrawing our support.

Consider the following:

1) "The Republican Party will bring change we can count on."

The very definition of conservatism is resistance to change. Consider changes that conservatives resisted in the past: Civil Rights. Equal Rights for Women. Social Security. Environmental Protection. A positive response to Global Warming. Energy Independence. Eventually, and sheepishly, they turned around on most of these issues, but never as leaders for change. More like foot dragging partisans who have trouble admitting when they are wrong. Should we believe that Republicans are now going to lean toward regulating financial politics, when their every instinct is cemented in the opposite direction? McCain now says he supports all forms of energy, but then focuses only on drilling oil in places that are off limits-ignoring sites that are presently available. Is that change we can trust, or thinly veiled political jargon?

2) When McCain was confronted by his negative ads, he diverted criticism by saying that they would not have happened if Obama had agreed to do Town Hall meetings with him.

Sort of like a rapist blaming the victim. McCain claims to using blackmail as an excuse for his approving negative ads. There is nothing honorable about this conduct, where he will say and do almost anything.

3) "Speaking with leaders of nations who disagree with us, without preconditions, is mistaken policy. It only legitimates them in the eyes of the world."

So, by inference, are we somehow fixing the situation by complaining from a distance while Iran builds nuclear weapons? The truth is, our refusal to speak with them legitimates their leadership within their borders by generating fear. Case in point, not talking with Castro never brought down his regime, but solidified his hold on Cuba. The silent treatment, in international politics, makes no sense at all.

4) "John McCain has voted against his party on many occasions, Barack Obama hasn't."

While this implies that McCain has more courage and free thought, what it actually means is that John McCain's party makes huge mistakes that McCain occasionally resists. Should Obama vote against his own party, without just cause, just to show he is a "maverick?" Keep in mind, being a "maverick" in the Republican Party means not towing the party line 100% of the time regarding their extreme conservative agenda.

5) "When I say that the fundamentals of our economy are sound I mean the American workers."

American workers are now economic theory? This is no more than masquerading the fact that McCain had no idea of what he was saying.

6) "Tax and spend liberals." "Smaller government."

What alternatives are they suggesting? "Borrow and spend conservatives" leading our nation into economic ruin? As for smaller government, the United States is a big nation. How small can government get? If we are not willing to pay taxes to keep our nation and people safe, what kind of patriots are we?

7) "Wealthy people deserve tax breaks, because they generate more income and pay more taxes than the middle or lower classes."

Who do wealthy people ultimately make their money off of? Who buys the most amount of goods? Who makes things run? Whose children are being killed in wars? It's the hard earned money of middle America that is being transferred to a wealthy few, who then enjoy inordinate influence in Washington. As for paying taxes, many large corporations pay no taxes at all. Wealthy investors commit a lot of their tax returns overseas, so that American jobs are forfeited. The health of the nation depends on raising wealth among all Americans. Conservative attitudes toward wealthy elites is nothing less than social Darwinism.

8) "What we need is prayer in school."

Jesus told his followers to pray in private. Hmm. Why would Republican preachers say otherwise?

9) "Our founders were all Christians. Our government is based in Judeo-Christian principles."

The bible says nothing about democracy or republicanism or tripartite branches of government. These were all Age of Enlightenment ideas that were developed from looking at ancient civilizations, like the republic of Rome and the democracy of Greece. Our most influential founders nation were deists, not Christian, hence the deist reference to "Nature's God," rather than the "God of Abraham." The writings of Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and others express this in no uncertain terms. The Christian theocracy that the Pilgrims started failed soon after they arrived, and few people today would want to live under their rules. (Wealthy preachers especially. Pilgrim theology was very austere.) They would have to give up their fortunes and celebrity status.

10) "Intelligent Design should be taught side-by-side with evolution."

This is nothing less than another attack upon science in the name of religious fundamentalism. Conservatives have no problem denying truth whenever it is politically expedient. This is another assault upon our founders' intent to separate church from state.

11) "At least we aren't wasting time pointing blame at anyone. Liberals are looking to the past."

This latest quip, referring to the 2008 stock market crisis, is beyond belief! Anyone who listens to conservatives talk knows full well that they have made a cottage industry of pointing blame, and usually in the wrong direction. That they choose not to during this financial crisis is because they were the ones who pushed deregulation, thereby causing the problem. After the Great Depression, liberals formulated these regulations to prevent another disaster. Conservatives took them away.

12) "Islamic terrorists attacked the United States because they hate freedom and want to destroy our way of life."

Al Qaeda stated their purpose clearly. They attacked America for our support of Saudi Arabia's regime, and for having our troops stationed within their sacred territory. People like Rudy Giuliani have made celebrities of themselves defining 9-11 as the start of an ideological war. John McCain is guilty of this too. Americans are never safer because of lies.

13) "Liberals would raise the white flag of surrender by withdrawing from Iraq."

What government or army are we fighting there? The war is over. Saddam and his military machine fell, and quickly. When Sunnis and Shiites fight among themselves (because of our persistent, destabilizing presence), conservatives have no right using such adolescent quips to keep us there long after the war ended. McCain talks of "victory," appealing to American pride. What pride is there in winning an "unjust war?" What pride can be taken from killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans, when our reason for war was based on lies? Remember, Iraqis want us to leave. Al Qaida wants us to stay.

14) "The surge that I supported worked."

We all know that if you send in enough soldiers, a lessening of insurgency will follow. Should we vote for McCain because of that? Or vote for Obama for wanting to avoid unjust wars to begin with. If we ever want to regain our moral authority, we need to resist unwarranted military adventurism.

15) "There hasn't been an attack on American soil since 9-11."

While this is true, always remember that Americans are dying nonetheless—on someone else's soil. Over 4,000 American lives have been sacrificed in a misguided war that has strengthened Al Qaeda, while Osama bin Laden goes free. The fact that they died over there instead of here does not make their deaths any less tragic. The vast majority of them died because of the Bush administration's decision to invade a sovereign nation, unprovoked, while completely and willfully ignorant of the culture and problems we would face by doing this. We can't afford this anymore.

16) "We need to rein in activists judges on the Supreme Court."

This is a blatant attack on the idea of three equal and separate branches of government. Oddly enough, most of the activist judicial rulings have been pro-conservative, such as favoring George Bush over Al Gore in the 2000 election. Can you imagine how different things would be if Al Gore had been president? Yet we don't hear liberals attacking the Supreme Court. They respect our constitutional form of government.

17) "Government is not part of the solution, government is the problem."

This kind of propaganda contributed to the Oklahoma bombing by conservative fanatics who are brainwashed into thinking that our representative government is the enemy. Can conservative leaders run government well if they don't respect it? Obviously not, considering the incredible corruption that exploded under the Gingrich/Delay leadership.

18) "The separation of church and state is not what our founders intended."

Simple enough to refute. Read the writings of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The founders saw how religious wars plagued Europe in the past, and wanted to avoid the same.

19) "Privatizing Social Security will save Social Security."

We don't hear that mantra much since the growing economic crisis culminated in 2008. Taking money away from the system would destroy it, and conservatives knew that. They preferred having people invest in risky corporations instead, which would have destroyed their retirement plans.

20) "Global warming is not manmade."

Always trying to undercut liberal positions, conservatives have made a concerted effort to raise doubts about human contributions to global warming. After scandalously doing this for years, putting all life on the planet in jeopardy, they are slowly accepting the facts in light of overwhelming evidence. In a prideful disregard for science, they still contend that human activities are not responsible for global warming, as if pollution just disappears on its own. One wonders how much their foot-dragging over several decades contributed to the intensity of the hurricanes suffered by the United States in recent years.

21) "Barack Obama is the most liberal member of Congress."

Conservatives say this as if the word "liberal" were an insult, which they have convinced their followers it is. The truth is that liberalism formed the basis of our nation's founding (conservatives, fearing change, as always, wanted to retain their colonial status). Liberalism helped bring prosperity out of the Great Depression. Liberalism took the lead in guaranteeing civil and equal rights for all Americans, and in protecting the environment that our lives depend on. They even got us to the moon. Liberals seek to balance equality with the right to property. And while they did all this, conservatives built roadblocks and cranked out misleading propaganda, convincing people that closed-minded political bias is the real American way. If Barack Obama is the most liberal member of Congress, he deserves credit.

22) "East Coast or Northeast Elites."

In their obsession to ideologically take over our government, a goal readily admitted by Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay, Republican strategists have successfully stigmatized certain areas of the country in order to create an automatic rejection of their ideas and representatives. They call East Coast or Northeast liberals "elites," inferring that people from these areas are too educated and cultured to identify with issues of "real Americans." Carefully considered, this is actually a backhanded insult to "non-elites," as being uneducated and uncultured. Nevertheless, indoctrinated heads nod with approval. This has had a detrimental effect of automatically disqualifying presidential candidates from specific areas of the country. What could be more exclusionary and un-American than that? The East Coast and Northeast states gave birth to this nation. This can only be seen as another attempt at undermining this government to take control.

With all this on the table, why do so many well-meaning Americans support conservative agendas? Because a number of well-funded conservative think tanks work hard at ruining the reputation of liberalism and deceiving Americans from seeing the truth. They've been doing that for many years. In their thirst for power, they have shown traitorous disrespect for truth, led us into an unjust war, gave terrorists even more provocations to hate us, contributed to global warming, contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 (through deregulation), and brought political integrity to its lowest ebb. Millions of voters let that happen.
    Now is the time for Americans to recognize Republican rhetoric for what it is: jingoistic, pseudo-patriotic, pseudo-religious claptrap that supports a wealthy oligarchy while detracting from integrity of thought that a democracy needs to survive.
    The 2008 presidential election needs to represent more than just a change of direction. It must become a political referendum against the National Republican Party for all damage they have done to America in their greedy search for power.

(* Please note, these indictments refer to the National Republican Party. Local Republicans are often quite different, and should not be judged accordingly. On the local level, Republicans usually serve honorably and deserve the highest respect. They still hold on to what conservatism was once all about.)

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