9 posts tagged “republican”

Because there is an online journal that actually publishes a monthly article about my political opinions I try and keep myself informed.  I like to examine both sides of an argument before I write an opinion, and while I fully admit I'm no expert, I do make the effort to make comparisons to history whenever possible before wading into the debate.  

I've been pondering an article for a while.  Basically the current political climate makes it pretty necessary for the Republican party to do a bit of revising on it's image.  If Obama overspends to insanely and America is still balls-deep in a recession come 4 years, I'm pretty sure a brain-dead chimp with a cross around it's neck leading the GOP could win the election, but if Obama is at all competent then we may be looking at a definite liberal shift in America's politics.  Now if Liberal meant "rooted in Liberty" as it did once upon a time then I'd be all for it, but today Liberal is sononomous with socialism where a single government gets more and more control over larger and larger areas.

These last few weeks I've had a hard time finding something to write about.  Obama got in, hasn't been shot at and Bush in his last few weeks as president actually acted like a responsible statesman.  As a result it's been rather hard to find a subject to get worked up about enough to actually express my thoughts on it.

1. Torture.

Okay.  The more I read about Governor Sarah Palin the more I'm laughing at this.  Were we talking about experience before?  Because this makes a mockery of that whole discussion.  

Here's what I don't get... whenever someone steps in front of a camera and says that maybe guns are weapons and gun owners should be held accountable for that, every GOP member and their dog hops onto their soap-box and starts screaming about their Constitutional Rights... but whenever other aspects of the constitution are outright used as toilet paper then flushed... crickets.  Kinda makes me wonder about the validity of their arguments...

The War on Terror.  Read those words; The.  War.  On.  Terror.  Each word has a blunt finality about it, this is not A War on Terror, it is not The Struggle Against Terror, and it is not The War on Extremists or weapon wielding maniacs, or the policy to protect people.  It is simply The War on Terror and it is propaganda.

Muslim, Jihad, Taliban, Al-Queda, we say these words and we listen to them, but we do not know what they mean and those that do have no interest in telling us.  They are words in another language that most of us don't speak, references to a culture not our own, and when we hear them, we think of what we've been carefully guided to think of for the past 7 years.  They too are propaganda.  

Before September, 7 years ago, there was a different war.  Perhaps some of you remember it; The War on Drugs.  We don't hear about the War on Drugs anymore, but not because it's been won.  There are still plenty of drug users everywhere, their dealers are still making hoards of money, and Law Officials are still struggling to shut down massive narcotic operations.  Still there is no more War on Drugs.  Why is this?  Because the War on Drugs is just words, and those words were once propaganda but are no longer.

The War in Iraq, we hear these words and they sound tired.  Some of us remember that there was a War in Iraq once before, but it isn't considered.  This is not another War in Iraq, because that other one was so short we hardly even managed to catch the exciting parts on the nightly news.  This War, the War in Iraq is not just words, it is not propaganda, it stopped being so when thousands of soldiers didn't come home, or came home crippled.  It stopped being just words when the last glimmers of the former prosperity of the 90's was submerged by market insecurity and rising fuel costs.   They stopped being just words when the Weapons of Mass Destruction, were not there... their leader was dead... but still no one came home, soldiers were still fighting and dying, but all the propaganda associated with it was gone.  

Osama Bin Laden, is a man.  He is responsible for the deaths of many American citizens, and he is in hiding.  He is not just words, but he is propaganda as well.  America's people are united in their hatred of Osama Bin Laden, his continued existence justifies enormous public expenditure towards The War on Terror.  His continued existence justifies the suspension of habeas corpus, it justifies torture, it justifies the annihilation of the Fourth Amendment Constitutional Rights, and it justifies a national suspicion and borderline hatred of the largest and fastest growing religion in the world.  Now what would happen if he were caught?

In a Democratic nation, propaganda is necessary.  It creates a unified cultural identity and gives the nation a cause.  If there is no cause than a nation will tear it's self apart squabbling over taxes and the cost of pies.  Propaganda creates the illusion of a mutual enemy which unites the people and keeps the nation functioning.  Democracy empowers any individual with a strong enough passion to change the course of his nation, but that's the problem.  A ship can only go one direction, and if there are multiple rudders all guiding it in different directions the ship won't go anywhere and something could break.  So steps must be taken to ensure that those multiple rudders are at the very least not all working against each other.  

Democracy is a form of government, it is an ideal fostered thousands of years ago by men with a dream.  "[It] is the worst form of Government, except [for] all the others" - and it is widely considered to be the best reason to be an American, or Canadian, British, French, Australian, or a number of other great nationalities.  America can be proud that it was the nation that inspired the rest of the world to begin adopting this beneficent form of government.  America lead by example and the world is a much better place for it today.  

George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Carl Rove, are people, and they may yet be propaganda in the future.  They are responsible for the deaths of many American citizens, and they are not in hiding.   They were the creators of The War on Terror, they ordered the War in Iraq, and they have not captured Osama Bin Laden.  However, they have used these things to erode, undermine and shame America's greatest legacy.  The people who have been killed because of their actions are numerous, but worse is the compromise of the integrity of the nation which they have lead.  They have successfully attacked America's ideals and destroyed elements of what make America great, they have violated it's laws, and tarnished it's reputation.  And still they continue to do so every day, they tell us it is for our own good and we choose to believe them even though we know they are liars.

People say that America is being attacked, they say that it's enemies are growing stronger and that each person needs to realize this and take steps to protect their homes and families. 

I whole-heartedly agree with those words.

I know that in my writings I come off as quite Liberal leaning, but in many things I have a strong conservative background. I believe in smaller government that requires less taxation, equal rights for everyone, the rule of law, and accountable government.  These days the Canadian conservative government gets high marks for everything on that list except for accountable government.  It's hard to follow what they're up to, and while when scandals arrive they're quickly brought above board, they're still doing a lot behind the scenes that aren't apparent to the majority of the people.  But overall I say they've been doing a great job and I'd vote them in again.  

Political blogging is a good way to exercise your mind some days, but proportionately by now my mind should rival Einstein's by now for all the politic blogs I've been reading.

I've learned a lot about the American electoral process in the last few weeks, can't say I'm a fan really, to me it seems like a broken system that doesn't really represent the people's wishes, perhaps it's that I'm still learning.

To understand my view of systems you have to understand my background as a gamer and what I was taught by my mentor Ian.  Role playing game are about wandering a made-up person through a make believe scenario, the system the RPG uses arbitrates the interactions between the made-up person and his environment.  A poor system has holes, inconsistencies and imbalances, and doesn't even attempt to come close approximating how things would be in reality.  A good system will emulate the entire spectrum of the way humans can interact with anything, and the better they do it the more fluidly the game experience will work and the easier it is for someone new to understand how things work because they can just explain what they would do in real life, and the game system can pull it off in a somewhat balanced fashion.

There are a lot of game systems out there, and most of them I won't even bother to look sideways at.  There was actually a period in the early part of this decade where there were less options than ever for the game that I wanted, so unwilling to put up with them, my friends wrote a new system.  And believe me, it is one of the injustices of the universe that that game is not published yet.

Anyhow, what I'm getting at is that for me, when I see a system I don't like I don't really feel confident enough to work with it, and the American Political system is a system I'm not a fan of for sure.  Good thing I'm not an American I guess, but I still feel compelled to say that the system should be changed.

At the heart of my issues is the two-party's only government.  Two parties means you're either a liberal, in favour of a minority-loving nanny state, or you're a conservative who wants God to smite all the gays, as your right to have children is sold to the highest bidder.  Let me tell you, I'm neither.

I'm not saying that both parties are bad, but they're dynastic brands that are resistant to change.  Even if the Republicans and Democrats got completely overhauled and their stances changed across the board, the public would still see the parties the way they always had before, the corporations would still be making deals with the parties the way they had in the past, and the media would still spin its member's actions to suit some outside agenda.  When you look at MacDonalds, you see MacDonalds.  There's an association with that, and it's been drilled into your head for over 20 years, if MacDonalds changed their menu entirely that perception wouldn't change at all, not until they did away with their name and everything that looked old about them. 

So ultimately with two parties there isn't any real choice, the spokesperson for a party can't change anything if the party doesn't want that change to come into effect.  So things that perhaps the country might need, like the shrinking of federal influence, dissolution of the IRS, or returning certain rights and freedom's will never ever come to pass because it's simply NOT in the government's interest to do those things. 

I think that's one thing that GWB might have got right.  Back in the early first campaign he seemed like a man of principles with a strong view of what he wanted America to be, but it's obvious he bought his way into power, and worse he did it with someone else's money.  And then along the line he discovered out that he'd sold the freedom he had for that money.  The man is obviously hog-tied and unable to satisfy the people of his country because he took courses of action to benefit his financiers and now he can't back out.  Perhaps he isn't being forced to do everything he does... but if he isn't - being forced that is - then why is he continuously walking out to address the press and tell the public about all the things he's doing and continuously sounding so stupid about it?

Consider this, perhaps the man knows he's over a barrel, he knows his soul is sold and he has no recourse.  Worse yet, the things he's forced to do don't fit with what he wants for the country, so what does he do?  Well the only thing he can, he goes out in front of the cameras and tells the public what he's doing in the most infuriating way possible.  Sure he'd go down as the worst president America will ever know, but when the wheels of Democracy turn and a new president walks into the office, at least the American people will know what needs to be fixed.  Maybe they won't make the same mistakes...

Probably a long-shot that's off the mark, but who knows, maybe Baby Bush is trapped in a system that's untenable and knows it.