Leaving the GOP
By Valerie Maghoul
My father is my favorite Republican. Through conversations with my father, I have a clear window into the GOP mindset. It is also my father who solidifies my belief, at the middle of my life, that I will be a Democrat for my remaining days.
The decision to break from the GOP happens at different times for each of us who were raised in traditionally Republican families. Sometimes it occurs like the sharp slap in the face we are currently experiencing due to the bungling of both Domestic and Foreign policies. Or it can be slow and insidious, as we branch out and meet a broader world. Once you see that life is pretty much the outcome of each preceding choice, you see that we all are pretty much the same. Nobody wants to live in squalor. We all want access to health care when we need it, and most of us believe that there should not be a two-tiered system of public education separating children based on the income of their parents. You also see when we cross the line from being a benevolent Super Power to an International Bully, and the consequences for us of the rage we engender.
Here are some warning signs that it is time to leave the GOP:
**Republicans are proud of the fact that the person who got the most votes was not declared the winner of the 2000 Presidential Race.
**You lost respect for the U.S. Supreme court after they interfered with the electoral process and decided the outcome of the 2000 Presidential Election.
**You believe the U.S. Constitution and not the Holy Bible should be the final authority on how our government is run.
**You are shocked by a Congress that rushed to impeach a President for lying about his sex life, but has turned a deaf ear to a President who has repeatedly lied about his reasons for starting a war.
**You have a good memory and recall that the administration told us that Iraq posed an immediate danger to our national security due to WMD and ties to Al-Qaeda and that these were the reasons for the war, not the liberation of an oppressed people which is the current spin.
**You know that the mythical "Liberal Media" does not exist. If it did, we would not need to watch the BBC to see what is really going on in the world.
**You know that the Patriot Act is neither patriotic nor consistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the two things that still make us enviable to the rest of the world.
**You think of Stem Cell Research in terms of the good that it can do, not in terms of the religious statement that it's prohibition can make.
** You realize our president inherited a budget surplus and within two years turned it into the greatest budget deficit our country has seen.
**You believe that the high unemployment rate is a major problem, even if your own job has not been effected.
**You believe that other Americans should be able to get the medical care for their children that you would expect to receive for your own children.
**No matter how many ways you look at it, cutting taxes when we are running the highest annual deficit in U.S. history just doesn't make sense.
**You cannot accept an infusion of "God's Will" into a public policy debate as a substitute for critical thinking.
**You do not think that you have the right to decide that some woman, whom you will never meet and whose life circumstances will remain a mystery to you, should be treated as a criminal for having an abortion.
**You are peeved that the President lined up lucrative contracts for his cronies to rebuild Iraq, without the competitive bidding process for which Capitalism is known.
**You are left shaking your head that the President (a) created a unilateral war in Iraq, (b) ignored the opinions of most of the world to prosecute that war, and now, (c) wants the rest of the world to bail us out of the mess we have created for ourselves in Iraq.
** You believe that when we secure the oil fields before securing water, food and medical care for the people whom we were "liberating " in Iraq, it is morally wrong.
**.You know that until we can legislate what people hold in their hearts, we must uphold Affirmative Action.
** The Bush Administration’s record on dealing with Corporate fraud, the environment, unfunded educational mandates, etc.
If you find yourself losing sleep on these points, or at least nodding in agreement, it might be time for you, too, to leave the GOP. 2004 gives us the opportunity to begin to repair the damage done to our country and to our reputation around the world. Let us choose wisely.
Valerie Anne Mahgoul