Why I cannot support the Republican Party.

I thought that it was past time to put this into writing.

A long time ago, and in a place far away - Texas, to be exact, I was, for all functioning purposes, a Republican.  Oh, I called myself an Independent, but I really never voted any other way but Republican.

Eventually, reality intruded, in the form of the abortion fight.  I found myself uncomfortably on the opposite side from what was then my comfort zone.  Hey, a lot of my fellow Texans were too.  That struggle has been quite divisive for quite a while.

Then fate took a hand, and I was offered the opportunity of a lifetime for a poor fellow from Texas with three kids and a wife to feed - a chance to be able to move (at government expense!) to a suburb of the nation's capital and a chance to obtain higher pay grades than possible under my then current station.  Being a reasonably intelligent man, and a desperate one for a higher salary, I jumped at the chance.

That suburb was Rockville, and it lies to the north of and about twenty miles from DC.  In the state of Maryland, which I initially derisively called the People's Republic of Maryland for its liberal tendencies.  For a variety of reasons, I rarely use that epithet now unless in some form of jest.

Living in a state so close to DC has been an eye-opener.  For one thing, the variety of restaurants is amazing!  One can find food from just about any corner of the globe if you look hard enough, and with an iPhone, that doesn't have to be hard!  But, I digress.

The real eye-opener is the variety of people.  A couple of houses, including the one next door, are rentals, and every so often, one family moves out and another moves in.  Over the last twenty years, many of the renters have been diplomatic families - or at least, diplomatic functionaries not well enough off to afford residences in DC itself.

The experience of living next door to people from other countries IS an eye-opener!  In addition, my wife runs a daycare, and in the course of the twenty plus years here, a large percentage of her clients have been foreigners, too; one family from Bangladesh has become lifelong friends, their daughter becoming as close to us as our own daughters.

Holding on to cherished Conservative ideals is hard under the onslaught of reality.  You know, the kind of reality that shows you that muslims are just people like you and are as horrified at extremist violence as any American is - as a matter of fact, the entire family IS American, certainly in attitude and cultural assimilation.  Their daughter was in fact born here, and while has spent time in her parents' home country, is much more at home here where she grew up.  A recent graduate of GW University, she is currently looking for work while awaiting admission to a law school.  Yeah, American as apple pie.

What I am saying is that I cannot support a political party that sees these people as less than human, and given the color of their skin (which our family never paid attention to), Republicans certainly see as such.  As a matter of fact, Republicans seem to see people with brown skin as "collateral damage" more often than not.

I cannot support a political party that sees its looming demographic loss of voters as such a threat it is willing to cheat, play dirty and lie wholesale to keep itself in power.  As I've said before, if you feel you have to cheat to win, you've already lost.

Republicans will move heaven and earth to convince us that they are "pro-life".  As a matter of fact, they are anything but.  Once you are actually born, they no longer have any use for you, especially if you aren't white!  That is unconscionable to me.  Pro-life means Pro-life, or it should.  If you aren't pro-ALL-life, then you are simply playing stupid semantic games for political advantage.

Which is twice as bad.

Republicans will also move heaven and earth to keep the mountains of money moving into the military budget.  Money which, in much smaller amounts than DOD burns up, could solve forever the hunger problems of the entire Appalachian Mountain range and the rest of the country to boot.

But tanks, aircraft and ships DOD itself will tell you it doesn't need nor want are more important to the Republicans (and to be fair, a lot of Democrats) who don't want to give up the lucrative Federal contracts for their constituents back home.

Many of whom don't work for the contractors, and would rather have their children educated so they can get better jobs and not be hungry.

Education.   The bedrock of what made this country the greatest industrial powerhouse in the world which almost won WWII by the power of its industry alone.  The bedrock of what built us into a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world after that war was won.

A system Republicans are now trying to gut and convert into a system of religious schools, the Christian mirror of the Muslim madrases.  Schools which would be devoted to teaching our children religious dogma at the expense of science and technology, dropping this country in a short time to one of the worst educated countries on the planet.

A political Party that has declared war on women.  War on civil rights.  War on other religions, and before long, secessionist forces will tear this country apart, evan as Republicans rattle our sabers at yet another foreign country on what may very well be trumped up charges.  Again.

Why?  For what reason would they tear the strongest country this planet has ever seen apart?  Political power?  Personal power?  As I noted in my post just the other day, the demographics of the population growth and patterns of birthrates among the different ethnic groups is certain to put the Republicans into a minority position very soon.  Add to that their pattern of alienating almost every single voting block except white Southern males and you have to wonder what the ultimate goals may be.

Or if they are simply tools.  Tools being used by some unseen group with an agenda - an agenda that needs this country to fall from the pinnacle of its power as rapidly as possible, before the Republicans lose the opportunity to do so.

Because from where I sit, the Republican Party is bound and determined to destroy this country, while wrapping themselves in the flag and loudly proclaiming how much they love it.

It is a Party I cannot support, and one I am now ashamed to say I was once a supporter of.

Give me a few days, and I will outline some major failings of the Democrats, lest you think I've lost my rationality.