| 12/01/08 08:27 PM |
#194
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Carri Blodgett (Crowe)
Glad to hear your dad's improving Michelle - stroke recovery can be pretty remarkable, so we're all pulling for him. Danea, I'm sorry to hear about your Uncle. Cancer is just plain awful.
Thanks Danea for your long post. You've got some things totally right. These days, the term "Republicans" encompasses a diverse group of voters, aligned for various reasons under one of the 2 parties our system has come to be dominated by (third parties are great in concept, but seem doomed to garner only a small percentage of votes). Unfortunately for "tree-hugging" Republicans, the Republican party has come to be characterized as the party that embraces & has to cater to the far right extreme that is an important component of the party's base, such as the evangelicals, to which much of the party's electoral success in the 2000's has been attributed. It is those elements which draw so much of the ire of the left, because they are seen as intolerant, un-inclusive, discriminatory and reactionary on policy issues that disproportionately disadvantage women & minorities. Those extremists certainly don't represent all Republicans, but the party's high-profile pandering to the most conservative elements in the population poisons the whole pond for most of us left-leaning liberals who stand on the outside looking in.
It helps us all to hear the perspective of moderate, tolerant, thoughtful Republicans; because by speaking out and expressing your views, you show that the party is not the monolith of conservative, minority-hating, fear-mongering, reactionaries that many are quick to demonize it as.
Your historical perspective is impressive. And yes, the Republican party has been the party of inclusion and equal rights at times in our history. Much of this happened before our lifetimes, but Lincoln was a Republican and some of the staunchest, most racist southern politicians have been Democrats. Johnson turned that around and, to quote from some documentary I saw on PBS, "delivered the South to the Republicans for the foreseeable future" when he enacted the Civil Rights Act. It was a bold, decisive & laudable action to deliver on the promises of the Kennedy administration; and it is Johnson's best legacy (Vietnam being his worst, I suppose), even if it did turn the (still heavily racist) South towards the Republican party for decades to come.
I'll disagree on one point & say that the people bombing abortion clinics are far more than "a bit wacky!" They're criminals and psychopaths. They should be wholesale condemned by everyone - no matter what your stance on abortion rights & reproductive freedom. And I'll say I appreciate your non-judgmental, open-minded, live and let live approach to things like gay marriage and abortion rights. My take on it echoes yours in some ways : each of us has the right in a free country to believe what we want and to live our life according to our own core beliefs and values (to a degree, of course we need law & order & all). In a free, plural society, though we all believe certain things are wrong, we all need to exercise tolerance out of respect for the freedoms that we have & peacefully coexist with those who hold differing beliefs & opinions. We need to not legislate discriminatory practices or religious values. I may think it's wrong to have an abortion, but I would not support a government that would deny that option to women (or which would force it upon women); I may feel that people should not own guns, but I would not support a government that would deny that option to its people; I may think it's wrong to practice religion, but I would not support a government that would deny that freedom to its population (except when that religion condones grown men "marrying" pre-teen girls or some other horrific abomination); I may not believe in gay marriage, but it is not my place to judge and I have no right or reason to deny that union to a couple that wants to marry in a church or city hall and avail themselves of all of the benefits (both emotional and civil) marriage has to offer in our society. Those are not necessarily my views on these controversial issues, but I use them to illustrate the point that wherever a person stands in their own beliefs on a given issue, their beliefs should not color their stance on whether a free society should permit other, conflicting beliefs to flourish on the topic.
To shift gears a bit, did anyone see the Frontline episode about Lee Atwater? This is the man Karl Rove learned at the heels of. At least he had an epiphany and apologized at the end of his life. Not that politics weren't always nasty, but wow, the man used some pretty unscrupulous, unforgivable tactics to win elections. (Sorry, I have a major crush on Frontline.)
Finally, from the discussion above, I do have one question for those who don't support government assistance to needy people. What entity is supposed to help those folks out if government does not provide a safety net? Their families? Do you feel charities should bear the full burden of caring for the underserved in our country? Do you believe the government should provide a net, but design a good one that keeps the freeloaders out of the system? Do you believe that, because we are a capitalist economy, those who fall to the bottom deserve to be there and should receive no help? I fear that "capitalism" these days has come to mean a purely capitalist society that does not take care of its underprivileged - that winners rise to the top and losers fall to the bottom and each has earned that place in society; and following from that, if you try to implement some sort of provision for the poor you'll be accused of being "socialist" and marginalized. Personally, I don't feel those who need help necessarily deserve to be there (nor do I feel everyone at the top deserves to be there); and once you accept that premise, it seems right that a wealthy society works to bolster the position of all its people to some decent level of existence. I just don't understand what mechanism folks would suggest & endorse if this is not a proper endeavor for a government in a capitalist system.
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