Betrayal, Principles, and the GOP

On Monday November 1, 2010 I wrote The Republicans Will Betray the TEA Party. When I was held down and asked to predict when this would first be proven, I said February 2011. I was right. I wish I wasn’t but I was. Republicans like the Democrats have only one principle, staying in power. The TEA Party was backed approximately 40 congressmen. Of those 31 voted to extend what are arguably unconstitutional provisions of the so called “Patriot Act.”

These votes are the beginning of the systematic betrayal of the TEA Party. Boehner will continue to work at expanding the Federal government following in Pelosi’s footsteps. He will use different rhetoric, but his actions will be to promote more government and reduce the liberty and freedom of individuals. The Republicans have in their power, to completely stop the excessive spending and expansion of government in Washington. All they have to do is vote no on extending the debt ceiling. This will force the government to cut back. They don’t need a single Democrat vote or a single vote in the senate of any kind. Just by refusing to vote for allow the government to go further into debt they can stop the growth of government. They will vote to expand government not hold themselves or any branch of government fiscally responsible.

The GOP talks of its principles but exactly what principles do the actions of their votes show: A spineless accommodation to Wall Street and the the military-industrial complex? Empty promises to “limit government” while voting for its expansion? Wrapping Corporatism in flowery patriotic rhetoric?

Take the GOP foreign policy, We’ve sent some $70Billion dollars to Egypt over the past few decades, only to find $40Billion of it in a dictators savings account. Could somebody in the GOP please explain why I’m going in to debt and placing my children and grandchildren into debt to make a dictator of a foreign country obscenely wealthy? Yes he was a “friendly” dictator, but billions of US dollars in his private account is hard to justify. We spent $14.3Billion supporting the governments of Bangladesh, Bolivia, Bosnia, Columbia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Liberia, Pakistan, the Palestine Authority, Peru, Russia, and Ukraine last year alone. Some would say that compared to our total federal budget it’s not significant, but that is more than the total social security payments for well over a million senior citizens.

The basic American principles that are associated with the GOP in recent history, are not actually practiced by the GOP. They play lip service to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but the principles that the Republicans actually practice, and the habits they have adopted in pursuit of their cushy Capitol Hill jobs, do not match their rhetoric. The GOP is the definition of hypocrite – talking “less government” while ever expanding it. Expanding government slower than the Democrats is not less government. They have never actually given us what they promise and have repeatedly betrayed those who vote for them. At least Obama is honest in his rhetoric, he won’t call himself a socialist, but he clearly says what he means, and he means to expand government, limit individual liberty, and punish those who are successful and redistribute the wealth so that nobody gets more than what he feels is fair (well accept for his friends and the elite who know what everybody else should do). He has said that the Constitution of the United States is a barrier to getting what he wants done, so ignores it. The Democrats under Obama are taking us down the wrong road, but at least they are doing what they said they would do. The Republicans, are taking us down the same road just at a slightly slower pace, and are lying about where we’re going.

The principles that made this country great: the rule of law, equal protection under the law, protection of individual unalienable rights, once called liberal, now called libertarian are the principles most Americans value. Both parties, the Democrats openly, and the Republicans covertly, are working at destroying those principles. Under those principles the people, have power and cannot be so easily oppressed, taxed, and used.

The Libertarian Party is the party of principle, more closely associated with the values of our forefathers than either of the “major” parties. Because it is a party of principle, the LP would and does lose elections and acceptance rather than compromise those principles. The LP is often mistaken as an anarchist or libertine organization that is an amoral haven for drug users and antisocial types. This is because it is a party of principle, foremost being that all people should be free to act as they wish so long as their actions do not infringe upon the rights of another, a principle which neither the Republicans nor Democrats believe in. Both believe that they have the right to dictate to the masses how they should live.

As I predicted the Republicans betrayed the TEA Party within a month of being in office. They have fairly successfully co-opted the TEA party. Because the TEA Party has no true leadership and is a true grass roots response of the people to too much government, I believe that the betrayal of the GOP provides an opportunity for the TEA Party, and all of America to take a fresh look at principles, and specifically the party of principle, the Libertarian Party.