Come
on Republicans, it is time to take your party back, back from the fringe groups
who don’t believe in government at all, back from ones who want to turn the
party into a dictatorship that says believe what I believe, vote only the way I
say to vote, or you are out of here. Conservative, which is the view point
Republicans are supposed to represent means respecting old values, making
changes slowly and carefully. It does not mean stagnation. It should not mean
that everyone in the party has to agree on everything the ones who declare
themselves the most conservative agree on, or you are out. There is room, or
should be, in every party for different opinions, for changing directions as
circumstances change.
It
used to be a party of the good business man, one who recognized that as
business flourished, our nation flourished, as our workers advanced in
education and pay, our ability to make better products and have a mass market
for those products right here at home, also flourished. It was Henry Ford economics,
the man who recognized that if his workers couldn’t afford to buy his cars, who
would? It was Charlie Wilson economics that said, slightly misquoted, “What’s
good for General Motors is good for the country.”
As
good business men know, you don’t grow by only spending what you have in your
pocket. If you have a good idea, you convince others to lend you money, you
don’t grow a business by never incurring debts. You must pay your debts back, no
ands, ifs or buts, you must pay your debts back, or you lose your ability to
borrow, or borrow at favorable rates. In the case of governments, this is done
by taxes. The more we prosper, the more tax money we can raise. If we are
conservative, we try not to waste our money, we try to pursue spending that
brings benefits to all of us. We do not want to make citizens who feel they
need do nothing to pay back, whether they are at the upper end of the scale, just
lining their pockets and asking for ever lower tax rates, or at the lower end,
becoming third generation welfare recipients.
Both
parties are made of a mixture of all economic levels, and many backgrounds, and
various degrees of leanings from the far extremes to the middle, but, as has
been proven over and over, the majority, from both parties lean to the middle.
That is what has allowed us as a democratic nation to succeed, we can find
bargaining points, horse swapping if you will, to agree on how to get things
done. This cannot happen if the extremes of either party dominate the party.
This cannot happen if the Republicans don’t get rid of the Hastert Rule, this
cannot happen as long as everyone in the Republican Party is afraid to vote
what he feels is best for the nation, for fear of what will happen to his
chance of re-election. This cannot happen as long as people of the ilk of Rush
Limbaugh are looked on as the voices of the Republican Party. This cannot
happen when a most junior senator from Texas can bring the nation to its knees,
costing all of us billions of dollars, just to promote himself. That is not how
a democracy works, that’s how dictatorships work.
