Hold Your Nose And Vote Republican
So here we are. Just a few weeks away from a pivotal mid-term election. An election which could well end over a decade of Republican dominance in Congress as I’m sure I don’t have to remind you.
Are we ready for that? I think it’s clear to most conservatives that the Republicans haven’t exactly earned themselves an extension on their tenure as the majority party, but are we ready for Democrat rule? First, let’s run through what the Republicans have done to earn themselves minority status.
Just in the last couple of years we’ve seen scandals claim the careers of Tom DeLay, Bob Ney and, most recently (and disgustingly), Mark Foley.
We’ve also seen the Republicans abandon their dedication to conservative principles like small government and limited spending. One need look no further than the massive prescription drug entitlement - the largest expansion of entitlement spending in decades - to see that.
And what of campaign finance reform? It was supposed to be a limit on “big money’s” influence on the political process, but what it has turned into is one of the most egregious limitations on free speech ever passed by our government.
There are other less obvious examples of Republicans abandoning core conservative values as well. The No Child Left Behind Act is, in my humble opinion, an unwarranted intrusion by the federal government into state education issues, and the massive education spending increases that went along with it weren’t exactly in keeping with conservative thought on limited spending either. Education in this country needs an overhaul, obviously, but the conservative approach should encourage state-level solutions not one-size-fits-all solutions from the federal level. And throwing money at a problem is what liberals do.
Education isn’t the only area where Republicans have disrespected states’ rights. Look at the Schiavo matter, where Congressional Republicans attempted to trump the sovereignty of Florida’s court system in order to save Terri Schiavo’s life. I’m no happier about what happened to her than anyone else is, but the Republicans in Washington D.C. had no business sticking their noses into that matter. It was a situation to be settled at the state level, and the Republicans should have respected that. Federalism is one of the things that makes this country great, and Republicans have a duty to respect it because we all know the Democrats don’t and won’t.
Consider also the fact that Senate Republicans tried to force an amnesty/guest worker program down the throats of their conservative base despite clear evidence that most of their base wanted nothing to do with it. We finally ended up with a plan for securing the border with a 700-mile fence thanks to a group of stubborn House Republicans, but the arrogance of the Senate Republicans in ignoring the wishes of their base was nothing short of galling.
There has also been a rather appalling lack of progress on certain other issues important to conservatives and the nation in general. We still don’t have any progress on Social Security reform despite Fed Chief Ben Bernanke warning the country that we’ll be facing disaster if we don’t reform that entitlement (among others). We still don’t have any progress on the tax reforms promised to the American people by Republicans either.
By now you’re probably asking yourself if I’m ever going to end this list of complaints and tell you why, despite all of this, you should still vote Republican in a few weeks. I’ll get to that, but I wanted to first illustrated just how dissatisfied I am with Republican leadership in Congress.
I am really, really dissatisfied.
But enough with the complaints. Let me tell you why, despite all of this, Americans should still vote Republican come November. It’s quite simple, really. It’s just this: Democrats wouldn’t be any better than Republicans, and they’d probably be a lot worse.
First, let me address the corruption angle. What happened with DeLay, Ney, Foley, etc. has been awful, but it’s not like Democrats are any less prone to corruption and scandal. Neither political party has a lock on the moral high ground when it comes to scandals. Remember all the Democrats mixed up in the House banking fiasco? Heck, just think back to the entire Clinton administration for a veritable index of political scandals from sexual escapades to shady deals. The point is that no matter which party is running things in Washington D.C., corruption is going to be a concern.
Second, let’s think about the most important issue facing this country today. Namely, national security including the war on terror and the war in Iraq. At a time when North Korea has been firing off test missiles and threatening to set off a nuclear bomb and Iran continues to dismiss UN requests that it stop enriching uranium (as a parent dismisses a child’s pleas to stay up later) can we really afford to trust our national security to the Democrats? A political party who a) puts far too much faith in the corrupt and ineffective United Nations, b) has no plan for the middle east outside of “more diplomacy,” (something that has gotten us exactly nowhere in the past) and c) would have us hand victory to the terrorists in Iraq by pulling our military out of that country before we have completed our obligation to the Iraqi citizens?
There is a lot of anger in the country these days, and most of it is directed at the President and Republicans. I hear a lot of people say that they’re going to vote against Republicans come November. But is voting against a political party really a wise thing to do? Shouldn’t we all be voting for a party or candidate?
If we, as voters, approach this election with the idea that we should be voting for a candidate instead of against a candidate I don’t see how we can reach any other conclusion than this: As bad as Republicans have been, they’re still better than the Democrats would be, especially on the issues that matter.
This column will be appearing in the October issue of The Dakota Beacon.
di butler
Move_Zig
Gman
robert108
