Christopher Herrin
Liberal — Republicans adhere to ‘Impotent Design’
It seems bizarre that some people still identify with the Republican Party — or GOP, for Grand Old Party — or think they have powerful ideas for contemporary issues. The GOP has clearly exhausted itself as an ideology; therefore, I propose that we rename the Republican Party the Dinosaur Party.
First, the Republicans are not the party of fiscal conservatism. President Bush expanded federal spending by 70 percent, more than two times the increase under President Clinton.
The total budget surplus created by Clinton when Bush took office was $128 billion. By September 2007, a combination of tax cuts and spending had added almost $1.7 trillion to the national debt.
Under the last three Republican administrations, the federal government and national debt have expanded, contradicting the GOP assertion that it is the party of less government.
It seems that you need a Democrat to fix what Republicans destroy, namely our long-term prosperity. I have often wondered where the myth of the fiscally conservative Republican comes from.
Consider the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003. One month after passing, its ten-year cost estimate was raised more than $100 billion to $534 billion. By early 2005, the White House budget had increased the 10-year estimate to $1.2 trillion.
Former U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker called it, “[T]he most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s … because we promise way more than we can afford to keep.”
Therefore, it is completely dishonest when Republicans criticize President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill. For them, fiscal conservatism is merely a wedge issue.
It is due to this fundamental inability to reason and face facts that many Republicans appear just plain dumb. Clearly, the GOP has degenerated into the party of not only no ideas, but of empty-headed politics.
Consider the GOP’s electoral need to appeal to the most reactionary and dim-witted segment of the U.S. population — religious conservatives. This political need explains conservatives’ embrace of dullards like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, neoconservative Sen. Rick Santorum and George W. Bush, despite their having shown no command of the issues and no intellectual prowess.
Many religious conservatives are also downright hostile to our non-sectarian constitutional tradition. Even well-educated conservatives like Gov. Bobby Jindal have had to compromise their ethics to appeal to Evangelical voters by supporting, among other things, the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools.
Intelligent Design was ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court to be an underhanded way for Evangelicals to get religion into public schools. It also is explicitly rejected by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, as “God” is not a tangible, scientifically observable entity.
The Democrats are now the true conservatives, seeking a truly limited government that lives within its means and stays out of people’s way.
Christopher Herrin is a graduate Religious Studies major and a columnist for the Daily Forty-Niner.
Brian Cuaron
Conservative — Democrats continue ‘politics as usual’
Rejoice, my nation, and be glad now that America has the best political party in control of the White House and Congress.
There can be no doubt that Democrats are better at running things. Just look at the mess Republicans created when they were in control — the use of deceptive tactics to invade Iraq, wasteful spending on bridges to nowhere and a partisan attitude that allowed for no compromising with the other side.
Thankfully, the new Democrat leaders of our nation are nothing like their Republican forbearers. Led by the anointed Barack Hussein Obama — who legend says was born with a halo above his head — and his two prophets Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, our nation is now about to experience the change it’s been waiting for. After all, that’s what they promised us.
So, how have Democrats changed Washington? Let’s start by looking at how they ran their campaigns.
As we well know, Obama broke his promise to take public funding of $85 million so he could raise hundreds of millions more. However, we should not lose faith in the character of our blessed leader just because of this. In fact, he had a perfect explanation for why he lied.
“The public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system,” Obama said after announcing his decision.
In other words, when your opponent is bad you must be bad at the expense of values. Beat them at their own game, so to speak. Bravo to the “One” for practicing old-fashioned political hardball to get what he wants.
What about the actions Democrats have recently taken in the nation’s capitol? Well, they did pass that $787 billion stimulus package. Sure, the package contained pork-barrel projects, but Democrats needed to pass that bill for the good of the nation. If that means giving away taxpayer money for congressional pet projects so politicians can get re-elected, then so be it.
The same is true for the $410 billion omnibus bill Democrats passed. In today’s economic recession, Democrats need to spend $1.8 million for pig odor research, $143,000 for a Las Vegas natural history museum and $238,000 for Hawaii’s Polynesian Voyaging Society.
And what about that bipartisanship that Obama promised to bring? Well, the Democrat’s congressional leaders have shut out Republicans when it comes to making political decisions. This is needed since Republicans did the same to Democrats back when they were in power.
So let’s recap: Democrats are better at running the government because Republicans deceived the people, committed wasteful spending and practiced partisanship. Meanwhile, Democrats have changed Washington by doing the same thing.
In other words, are they both equally as bad? Maybe we should’ve stuck to the enemy we knew rather than voting for the ones we didn’t.
Brian Cuaron is a junior English major and the video editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
Forget, please, “conservatism.” It has been, operationally, de facto, Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson’s Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
“[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
[email protected]
PS – And “Mr. Worldly Wiseman” Rush Limbaugh never made a bigger ass of himself than at CPAC where he told that blasphemous “joke” about himself and God.
Bayle you are a racist whitey just like bush and his redneck cronies. that racist administration gave us 8 years of hell. about time we have hope and change in the white house. Si se puede!
Come on Bayle, nobody in politics could out dumb Bush and his crew. Never, ever.
Brian is incorrect – Democrates are not doing the same. BO and the dems are not just increasing the deficit and debt, they plan to QUADRUPLE the deficit and DOUBLE the current debt. It’s all a matter of dumb and dumber. It’s dumb what Bush and the GOPs did, and it dumber to continue to do the same. But what BO and the dems plan to do is DUMBERER!!!
Brian seems evasive and not committed to his conservative values. Very weak; a little left of moderate. Too many concessions to be taken as sincere.