There is a deranged sickness that most certainly has overcome the Republican Party. Before I get too far off my topic because I do know Democrats are hardly a perfect example of sanity, let me explain.
The Republican mix of two parts crazy, one part right wing extremist and one part dementia is by far one for the history books. Last week some notable members of the RNC put together a list of "conservative" items they'd hoped would unite the Party to prevent another loss in a heavily Republican district like NY-23 earlier this month. Republicans are calling the list "Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates." Like anyone with dementia, the magic list includes many things that Reagan never did or remotely came close to doing- or really any Republican.
Some selections from the list that stand out most notably as completely fabricated Republican crazy:
(1) Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill.
-- For those that refuse to recall history correctly, Reagan never once shrunk government. Sure he talked a lot about shrinking government but he never did it. He never came close. He also never made the national debt smaller. He never lowered the deficit and he raised more taxes than anyone since LBJ. This is just basic high school/freshman college level American history, but it's a history Republicans want to white wash and forget that it ever happened.
(2) Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
-- Looks great on paper doesn't it? Save capitalism! But in reality the largest expansion to government run health care since the advent of American government run health care came at the hands of none other than the Republican Party with George Bush's multi-hundred billion dollar expansion to Medicare. Also, the largest non-market based expansion of government (i.e., not saving capitalism) came from the wonderful GOP just months ago with Bush's TARP. So the Party that made ginormous expansions to government health care and government intervention into the free market economy was the GOP. When they do it, it's patriotic. But they want to be able to go around the country spewing their small government, capitalism spiel just so they can call themselves "conservatives" even though they govern nothing like it.
(3) Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
Again with the market-based capitalism talk. This from the Party that nationalized entire lending and insurance industries, that instituted 8 socialist funded government bailouts (more than any president in history). Again, they have no credibility on the free market front.
(6) Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
-- Can't be Republican unless you support war without end. Do they not realize these wars are 6 and 8 years old respectively? These are wars they failed to win! Neither war started this year and one of them should have never been started in the first place. When you're the people responsible for the mess, you don't get to criticize the people coming to clean up after you.
(8) Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
-- Aaaahhhh yes, one of my favorites, morality. That's because Republicans really have a problem with other people's sex lives. Such a stance might be commendable if it wasn't for the toxic immorality that controls the GOP. No need to go through the recent sex scandals of the GOP (Congressman Mark "fondling" Foley, Senator Larry "bathroom staller" Craig, prostitute frequenter Senator David Vitter, Senator John Ensign whose parents had to pay off his prostitute/girlfriend, the very holy and ordained Governor Mark Sanford, etc...). Seems to me a party that is interested in protecting marriage would first want to outlaw cheating on your wife.
(9) Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion;
-- Is this one serious? Endless war that kills hundreds of thousands of people and they expect us to believe they care about life? Guess what? Life doesn't stop at birth.
(10) The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.
-- George H. W. Bush anyone? Didn't he impose the largest ban on the 2nd Amendment ever? Didn't Reagan, the holy one, support and help pass the Brady Bill?
I believe the list stops at number 10. Right here, however, are 7 items that make absolutely no sense and are part of the Republican Fantasy World. It is a test full of items none of their past presidents can even pass, not even Reagan. They are the same issues and stump speeches Republicans have been giving for decades and never do they govern with their "core principles" once they are in power. They truly do just the opposite or what they label everyone else as "enemies," "socialists," and "terrorist supporters" for doing. It truly is a sickness. Scarier though is the thought that this is a major national political party.
