acroyear | a republican finally gets me to say what i've always felt...

Where We Went Wrong - washingtonpost.com:

Where did the revolution go astray? How did we go from the big ideas and vision of 1994 to the cheap political point-scoring on meaningless wedge issues of today -- from passing welfare reform and limited government to banning horsemeat and same-sex marriage?

The answer is simple: Republican lawmakers forgot the party's principles, became enamored with power and position, and began putting politics over policy. Now, the Democrats are reaping the rewards of our neglect -- and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Actually, yes, but part of that were the promises made to keep one particular contingency, the religous social conservative, content. In this, you made a Faustian bargain, an unholy alliance between your principle and theirs, and they do NOT coincide.

But has the '94 revolution been any different from before? Reagan campaigned in 1980 on "getting the government off our backs", and while he did succeed in simplifying the bureaucracy of the tax code (a limited success, since within 10 years it had grown to more complexity than before 1982), he also tripled the size of the federal bureacracy. Plus appointed Scalia to the supreme court, a hypocritical jerk who puts the rights of corporations and the presidency FAR above the real rights of the people or the constitution he claims to be defending.

As for your "Contract with America", well that didn't get very far with the U.S. Senate, now did it? Oddly telling, I think. So much for party unity...

All the things you promised were necessary and essential while in the minority power, you suddenly completely failed to actually pass once in the majority: term limits, line-item veto, flag-burning, true campaign finance reform...since 2002 when all three branches were so firmly in your pocket, along with massive state legislation support, you passed none of these. You even continue to insist that flag-burning is important even though the only other countries that ban it are Iran and China (oh, and Nazi Germany did so as well, if you know your history...).

Today, this lazy legislation has all but burned the very document it was sworn to uphold and protect, the Constitution of the United States. This congress gave away the very right most essential to an open and free democratic republic: the right of a fair trial, with due process, face the accuser, see the evidence, jury of peers. It has failed to punish those responsible for undoing decades of military justice under the Geneva Conventions treaty, but rather gave full compliance to those who would use "cruel and unusual punishment", in secret prisons around the world, negating both international law and treaty and that same Constitution that requires compliance with those laws.

Today, you fear. Today, you campaign on a platform of fear: fear of terrorism, fear of "gays", fear of evolution and science, fear of taxes (which aren't nearly as bad as deficits and debts - paying now is ALWAYS better than paying later, if you have the money), fear of a "welfare state", fear of a free press, and finally fear of criticism.

Today, we fear.

We fear tyrrany. Not of the islamic fundementalist, but of you. We fear one-party rule, without checks and balances. We feared it in the reconstruction era, we feared it in the roaring twenties, we feared it in the years leading up to the second world war, and we fear it now all for the same reasons.

We fear hatred. Not of gays, but of those who would use such fear to turn this country into a theocracy of one religious view. We fear the idea itself that there should ever be a "second class of citizens" with fewer rights than others. We fear not of Mexicans, but of those who would waste our children's money and future on a futile effort to keep out friends out while still easily letting our enemies in.

We fear for the loss of our future and our past, as efforts to stop science and accurate history are replaced with that same theocracy that feels the bible is both the answer to our biology and the reason this country is "free". It is neither: science accurately explains how humans became what we are from what we were and how human actions on this planet may permanently destroy it, and to deny this country its creative future on which our economy will continue to depend is insane and we fear that. We fear how you lie about the founding of this nation, painting the enlightenment philosophy of the fathers of our country as "christians" acting out of christ-like charity, all to claim that the bible should be the basis for law when in reality 7 of the 10 commandments violate the constitution.

We fear how you use ignorance of the reality of birth clinic proceedures to keep the medical technique with the most potential to cure our current diseases of AIDS, Parkinsons, MS, and Cancer, out of the hands of scientists where it belongs. The embryos are destroyed anyways. It would be better to benefit all than to destroy them needlessly. But you are too ignorant to know this or to accept the overwhelming proof of this when we show you. And we fear that.

We fear the mentality behind the idea that we should "go it alone" in enforcing ignorant foreign policies and unnecessary wars instead of fostering communication with the nations and learning how certain people, bad as they are, are better than the alternatives. We used to know this. You used to know this, 20 years ago. But you forgot. We didn't.

We fear how you would willingly take away the concept of an independent judiciary, another bedrock upon which this nation stood alone while other nations give their judgements away to the highest bidder or the nobility of their land. We fear the idea that you would willingly allow the people to "punish" judges for making decisions you disagree with, in the name of "democracy". We fear how you have forgotten the point of the Constitution is to limit the power of the majority to protect the rights of the individual from oppression. The judges haven't forgotten, for the most part.

We fear McCarthyism rearing its ugly head as those who criticize the president are labeled "terrorist aiders". It isn't that far to go from being labeled a "terrorist" to being arrested as one, and we fear that. We especially fear that now that you have said that "terrorists" don't even have the right to defend themselves from that label.

You campaign for fear to keep people in ignorance.

And we fear ignorance.

And so we fear you.

And even though the Democrats may not have all the answers we know are out there (these are tough problems you've left your successors with), we will replace you with them.

Because we will not live in fear anymore. We will live in hope.