The current Republican party is a radical entity that does not accept the legitimacy of the American way, and is bent on overthrowing it.
The American way is to separate church and state. It is enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Yet the people currently in power have funneled millions of taxpayer dollars into churches and church supported institutions.

The American way is to work inside a global framework to resolve global problems. President Wilson implemented the League of Nations, which evolved into the United Nations. The headquarters is still in New York City. Yet the people currently in power have given lip-service at best, and more often completely ignored the United Nations, the Kyoto Protocol, and every other international treaty and institution.

The American way is to solve international disputes with diplomacy whenever we can, and to solve them with violence only when we have to. Yet the people currently in power solve international disputes with violence whenever than can, and with diplomacy only when they have to.

The American way is to come to the defense of countries that are invaded without provocation. Yet the people currently in power instigated the invasion and occupation of a sovereign country without provocation.

The American way is to tax citizens according to their ability to pay. Yet the people currently in power have done everything that they can to eliminate taxes on capital, while "flattening" the taxes on wages so that the wealthy pay less and everyone else pays more.

The American way is for voters to choose their government. Yet the people currently in power assume that the government should choose the voters. They rigged the 2000 and 2004 elections by shutting down the vote count in Florida in 2000 and by misallocating voting equipment in Ohio in 2004 so that they could determine which votes were counted, and they used "caging" letters and other techniques to suppress voter turnout.

The American way denies the validity of slavery. Yet the people currently in power propose a "bracero" program for illegal immigrants that links each to an employer and makes their permission to stay in the country dependent on the "goodwill" of that employer.

The American way espouses the right of working people to enter into employment at will at wages that they negotiate with an employer. Yet the people currently in power have done nothing to reduce the influx of illegal immigrants, who have no leverage to negotiate their wages and consequently work for whatever the employer decides to pay. They have also done everything they can to cripple labor unions.

The American way is designed to work in conjunction with a free press that has imparts both sides of an issue. Yet the people currently in power have eliminated the "fairness doctrine" and consolidated the mass media into the fewest possible number of hands, ensuring that the entities that present issues to the voters are controlled by the same corporations whose interests the people currently in power serve.

The American way is to use our innate knack for technical innovation to solve problems. Yet the people currently in power have consistently rejected efforts to use technology to solve our energy dependence and the destructive force of our carbon emissions. They have also rejected the input of scientists and substitiuted their idology instead.

The American way eliminated the "divine right of kings" and replaced it with a government "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" Yet the people currently in power have consistently suggested that God has anointed them with the authority to rule America.

(with acknowledgements to Paul Krugman for some of these ideas)
The mutant strain of present-day conservatism has not wanted to reverse the New Deal; it has wanted to reverse the Enlightenment.
Source: "Just Another Word" By GARY HART - NY Times - March 19, 2009




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3/28/2024

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