September 02, 2008 08:00 AM UTC

Calling a spade a spade

• 5 Comments
• by: Phoenix Rising

When a party resorts to lies, fear, and intimidation to win elections, it’s a pretty good guess that they’ve bankrupted their own innovation and offerings.  It pains me to say that the party to which I once belonged – the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower – has become nothing more than this.

Follow me below the fold and let’s have a discussion on what’s broken, and what can be fixed.

The lies are everywhere, applied to anyone who isn’t anointed by whoever it is that controls the Republican Party.  In 2000, Sen. McCain found this out, losing the South Carolina primary in part because of dirty tricks rumors that his wife “had a black baby”.  In 2004, the sights were turned on Sen. Kerry, with questions about his wartime service that were beneath contempt – and yet they worked to damage his reputation.  Now, in 2008, we have “Obama is a Muslim”, “Obama is an Arab”, “Obama doesn’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance” and other idiotic lies – which nonetheless are finding purchase among those who don’t have the time or inclination to find out the truth.  For love of power, Truth has been sacrificed.

For seven years, the American people have lived with the threat of terrorist attacks on their own soil.  But for seven years, most of the threatening has been done not by the terrorists, but by our own Republican government and its allies.  For seven years, our own citizens have been asked to sacrifice – not treasure, nor labor, nor even for most of us the blood of our relatives – but rather the liberties and rights that were given us, “if we could keep them”, by the Founding Fathers and the Framers of our Constitution.  Fear of dissent resulted in the arrests of journalists and peaceful protesters.  Fear of ideas turned us away from science-based education and the most promising of research.  Fear of other religions led us into a time where religion once again intertwines with government.  Day in and day out, from party officials, representatives, and talking heads on the Republican side of the aisle, we are fed a constant diet of fear.  And the Courage to hope and dream has been suppressed.

And rather than attacking on differences of ideas, Republicans have preempted the discussion and instead go after Democratic Party ideals, subverting their meanings and making them seem as bad things.  The word “Liberal” was the first to go – a word once defined as seeking progress and being open to ideas, but now a term used to bully Democrats into seeming less Liberal.

When Democrats offer ideas, Republicans now counter with charges of “elitism”.  Like school bullies intimidating the school nerds who do better than them, Republicans mean to remove the arena of knowledge and ideas to compete instead on the grounds of machismo and sloganeering.  When Democrats offer a return to diplomacy, Republicans call us out as “traitors”.  200 years of diplomacy backed by strength are now dismissed as the ramblings of American surrender monkeys intent on giving away the homeland.  Ideas need not apply.

Enough of this.  No more fear; no more lies; no more being bullied into silence or mediocrity.  If you value the Republican Party, fix it – or let it die a quiet death and replace it with a party without smear meisters, fear mongers, and bullies dressed in suits.

It doesn’t have to be this way…  I’m not sure it can be fixed, but it has to start somewhere.  I’d like to start by pointing to Snopes.com, a non-partisan myth-busting site.  If your favorite talking point is debunked there, please don’t bring it up here – truth has to start somewhere.

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