Politics: What I’ve learned…

A while ago I posted the following to Twitter:

“If you surround yourself with people who think exactly like you, you’ll never learn anything.”

Apparently the concept was fairly well received, it got Re-Tweeted at least 4 times that I could count.

I live in North-Central Virginia. A little to far north to be hicksville, a little too far south to have actual culture.

What I’ve found, being surrounded as I am by republicans is this. People vote republican for the following reasons.

1. Self Interest – Most republican voters I’ve met are concerned with how government affects them personally. Not them as a neighborhood or them as a species, but them personally. They all want to see stuff done, but to a one, none of them wants to put ten cents into the pool to do it. These are the people who are against universal health care based on the cost to them. Never mind the benefit of having a healthier, more productive, less-expensive-to-maintain population. They’re fine with that so long as a dime doesn’t come out of their pockets to make it happen.

2. Theology. The Republican part has done a pretty good job of aligning itself with the Religious among us. Which is funny because the whole notion that is put across by the party that “This country was formed on a Christian foundation” is complete fabrication. This country was founded by a bunch of Diests, among these, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and some guy by the name of George Washington.  (They were also Freemasons)

It’s hilarious to think that the *ONLY* reason the republican party caters to the religious is because there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell they could win an election without them.  It’s pure pandering, and the religious conservatives sell out cheap.  All you have to do is throw gay-marriage or abortion into a speech and they’re all over it.  Nevermind that everything ELSE they believe in goes against everything that religion is supposed to stand for.  You know, like bombing women and children back to the stone-age.

2. Committment to “Small Government” – This is where the conflict comes to light.  Republicans are comitted to “Small government” but yet the l influence of corporate interests and the military-industrial-complex on the republican party forces it in exactly the other direction.   When National Defense is included (as it should be, it’s the largest government orginization there is) the size of our government actually shrank during the clinton years, In fact, the last two major Civilian Federal departments were created during republican administrations.  The EPA was created in 1990 by George H.W. Bush, and the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002 as a reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. *

3. Committment to “Minimal Government Intervention in Citizens’ lives” – This is another place where the rhetoric doesn’t match the actions.  This would preclude the government from getting involved in causes like Abortion & Same-Sex Marriage, where this time the religious right push the party off it’s true message.  Abortion and Gay Marriage should be up to the states to decide, but more and more often you’re finding idiot “republicans” calling for constitutional amendments to solidify their palce.  Now this annoys me because the Constitution is really a remarkable document, and it was truly a great set of rules 200 years ago when this country was first formed.

To introduce such idiocy into such a remarkable document would forever make us a laughing stock. (the mere suggestion of consitutionalizing a ban on gay marriage has ALREADY put is on that path.)

* Federal spending actually rose at adramatically much slower rate during the Clinton administration (1992 – 2000).  (Federal Spending actually went from 1.4 Trillion to 1.7 Trillion during the Clinton Administration, but went from 1.7 Trillion to 3.1 Trillion during the bush years.