Dear John Boehner and the RNC,
It is my personal understanding as an educated citizen of the United States that the Republican Party is not acting on behalf of the American people on any single issue.
Furthermore, I found the survey sent to me on behalf of that same party to be unfair and unbalanced, deliberately slandering and making unjustified swipes at the opposition. The term “socialism” used in question number 9 is used chiefly to terrify your constituents and is absolutely devoid of merit.
I do not condone the torture of enemies within our custody (mentioned in #11). We are the United States of America. As Shepherd Smith once proclaimed, “We do not fucking torture!” We are better than that, we have even survived the USSR. We cannot debase ourselves and become the very monsters which we are currently fighting. You believe Barack Obama is straying from the Constitution, while at the same time you argue for waterboarding and Christian theocratic governance, particularly against homosexuals. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states—and I quote—“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof.” This, of course, includes using Christian ideology to justify discriminatory policies towards homosexuals, as well as Creationism (Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District, 2005), and Christian historical revisionism in the Texas public schools.
Let us move on to the issue of national security. If it is indeed true that we must be “relentless in our efforts to protect Americans from terrorist attack”—and no one is arguing that we shouldn’t be—then it would follow that the Republican Party would equally support cleaner energy. Oil is controlled by regimes that are supportive of the militias that wish to do us harm. Furthermore, oil is controlled by regimes that do not share our values of democracy and individual freedoms, particularly of expression. These governments do not represent the will of their peoples, and are without exception despotisms. A particular offender is Saudi Arabia, with whom, against our stated interests, we have a healthy relationship while their women are oppressed under Wahhabi ideology (the fundamentalist sect of Islam). On its face, the Saudi government is trying to get its imams to tame the rhetoric, but still government charity money finds its way into the bank accounts of Wahhabi schools and the terrorist militias we encounter in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Regimes reliant upon petroleum do not have to tax their people. Tom Friedman laid out the dynamic quite nicely in his Hot, Flat, & Crowded: He said that while our motto was “No taxation without representation!” the motto of oil states is “No taxation, so no representation, either.”1 I’d rather pay taxes to have a fire department, a police department, a decent school district, and have a say in public policy than not pay taxes and have none of those things. And how do you expect to pay for two large military campaigns, when our Defense Department had to ship out soldiers without sufficient equipment? Saving money by expending soldiers is not a good policy.
Question # 20 is particularly uncomfortable “because there is no room for compromise.” Scott Roeder didn’t compromise, did he, when he shot Dr George Tiller last year. Neither does the KKK when they launch campaigns in the southern Midwest against Mexicans. Proposition 8 in California wasn’t a compromise, either, what with all of the money pumped in from Utah. No, George W Bush didn’t compromise when he signed the PATRIOT Act and Alberto Gonzales helped him slip through legal standards of interrogation. How can we expect to get anything done if Israel and Palestine do not compromise on peace agreements? The only way the Jews will have a home is if both sides can leave each other well enough alone. Building settlements in the West Bank will only exacerbate the situation. What do you want with Social Security? It’s already going bankrupt, what more could you want? Are tax cuts for the wealthy really going to help our economy? Our government has the means and the resources to alleviate economic hardship at least a little, and create markets for cleaner energy, enticing venture capitalists and corporate R & D divisions to build and deploy wind turbines and solar panels to the scale we need them for. If our government does not take this step, when will our energy companies decide to take the initiative? They’ve had 8 years to take the initiative, and all our industries have been able to produce are even bigger cars that consume more oil and give more money to our enemies abroad—even as the fighting was most intense.
Also of note, though I must examine it separately, is the Republican position on the judicial system. The term “Activist Judge” is a farce. I mentioned above the Dover Area School District case in 2005. Before the trial, Christian conservative pundits praised Judge John Jones III for believing almost exactly like them, being fairly confident that Creationism would be seen in a more scientific light. However, Judge Jones III, like all judges, is bound by the US Constitution and must rule in accordance with it. The Creationist movement has been exposed as an inherently religious phenomenon, and it was decided that it was a violation of the First Amendment to include it in a science curriculum. A court case such as that one, as well as the one that will come in Texas over the history curriculum, arises because someone—and that person can be anyone—recognizes a violation of our laws. These came about by injecting political ideology (which often carries with it deliberate misinformation) into a public school. The judge then has a task of evaluating fairly the arguments and appropriateness of the actions taken by both sides and rules whether or not they do in fact adhere to or violate US law as it is written. This is true in all cases of this type, often involving religious matters in public policy, and as a refresher, here is, once again, the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof.”
The only way for the Republicans to earn some respect now is if they begin to make responsible choices. And that means shutting down Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Progressivism is not a cancer on this country, and few people—if any at all—are serious socialists. Would a major political party be acting responsibly if it attempted to bring back Joseph McCarthy’s HUAC? Is that something that a political party in the United States of America—where people have the right to express themselves and assemble freely even in the face of opposition—feels it should do? Sir, I suggest you rethink how your party and your constituents conduct themselves if you wish to regain power. No major Democrat has ever publicly stated that conservatism is a cancer on its face, nor has any major Democrat ever brought a gun to a campaign rally, or openly supported assassinating any opposing political leader (Solomon Forell). A political party in such a state has no place in government. In the words of Michael Steele, RNC chairman, “We don’t do policy.” Even if people disagree with the Democrats on healthcare, I’m sure they are more well-liked than Glenn Beck.
1) Friedman, Tom. Hot, Flat, & Crowded. ©Picador 2007 Revised 2009. New York. p. 135
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