Re: What do Republicans really want?

Based on the Republicans I listen and talk to, a large proportion don't really go in for most of the GOP platform. They just don't want to pay taxes. It's really that simple. They latch onto lots of other reasons not to like Obama, like his pastor or whatever, but in the final analysis, they're just afraid he'll raise their taxes. That's the main reason they're Republicans. It's not about fiscal conservatism, i.e. running a balanced budget. Reagan and Dubya ballooned our national debt, and they didn't care. They don't care about the price their kids and grandkids will pay tomorrow; just don't take their money today.

It's not about freedom either. People who assert their freedom to do this or that are probably doing something they shouldn't be doing anyway, thinks a Republican, like protesting, having too much strange sex, doing drugs, or spouting radical opinions. (Guns are not included; simply owning guns is a good for everybody's freedom). Since the '60s, Republicans have been less concerned about protecting civil liberties and the 1st Amendment, because they think only radicals require these protections. The fracas over the Patriot Act, illegal wiretaps, and G'itmo has further reinforced their belief that only anti-Americans, ACLU-types, and terrorists should fear oppressive government and seek protection under the Bill of Rights.

(The Clinton years, surprise, surprise, were a detour from this general thought trend among Republicans, because Clinton was a Democrat. Then we had an explosion in the number of paranoid militias drilling in the woods; popular conspiracy theories about the "New World Order" and black UN helicopters zipping through U.S. airspace with impunity, preparing for their invasion; Al Gore planned to spy on every American's computer via "total information awareness;" Janet Reno's FBI were "jackbooted thugs" who picked on poor Randy Weaver and those devout Branch Davidians; Clinton sold nuclear secrets to the Chinese in exchange for campaign cash; Vince Foster's "murder" in the White House was made to look like a suicide by the FBI; Ron Brown's plane was "blown up" because he knew too much; and "dozens" of others were "murdered" by the Clinton "Death Squad." I remember all this stuff because I used to believe it; I listened to Rush and G. Gordon Liddy and had a subscription to National Review. It's no coincidence the X-Files were so popular in the Clinton-era 90s; but hardly anybody cares about evil government conspiracies now that a dumb, born-again, two-fisted Republican is in the White House, protecting us from "evildoers.")

Many other Republicans still fear "creeping socialism" courtesy of the Democratic party. They never really got out of that frame of mind from the Cold War, that America -- particularly the GOP -- is the last bulwark against worldwide socialism. They see Obama as the slick, silver-tongued salesmen who will hoodwink Americans into accepting European-style, godless social democracy. Nothing could be worse, it goes without saying.

On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 5:53 PM, < > wrote:

Yes, they clearly want it more badly than we do, but what do they actually want?

That's what I don't get. The tenets of republicanism used to mean things like smaller government, more individual freedom, responsible spending, oneman onevote, almost libertarian in its antipathy to big government.

Now, with these bail-outs, which will cripple that once-sacred cow of republicanism, the american taxpayer, and gas prices through the roof, the housing market in crisis, all because special corporate interests have been setting the policy agenda in this country for the last 30 years, you'd think these self-styled individual-freedom lovers would be up in arms, but no, they'd rather go down with the sinking ship.

I don't even get it anymore. Or rather, I do get it, but it's too depressing to accept. The bottom line is, the American electorate is as rabidly stupid and desperate for "strong" leadership as Mussolini's Italy, Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, and Mao's China.

I mean, why should our population base be immune to psychological weaknesses inherent in every massive population base throughout history? America's not special, and American's are just as vulnerable to being manipulated by rotten scumbags as any other nationality. Our history is supposed to provide us with a kind of immunity, but ever since the Reaganites came into their own, America's been steadily dumbed down, raised like so much intellectual veal.

It's so sad.