The Republican Party is broken. But we live in a country with a two-party system. For that reason, I want the Republican Party to reform itself and function as a legitimate alternative to the Democratic Party. So, I thought I’d lay out some of the things that I want the Republican Party to do.
Democrats want to offer all Americans access to health care, including subsidized access to prescription drugs. I want the Republicans to resist the temptation to give away an open-ended entitlement that would give every American the right to live forever through limitless organ transplants and other medical procedures. I want them to insist on a limited prescription drug benefit that focuses on life-saving drugs, not life enhancing drugs like Viagra.
Democrats want to enact Hate Crimes legislation that would add penalties to crimes deemed to be committed against certain minority groups. I want the Republicans to resist such attempts and instead increase the reach of existing civil rights statutes.
Democrats often clamor for handgun control. I want the Republicans to help close the gun show loophole and insist that gun owners are registered and trained to use their weapons. But, Republicans should protect the right of ordinary citizens to own handguns.
Democrats correctly want to improve the quality of the air and water in this country. I want Republicans to make sure that efforts to regulate pollution take into consideration the impositions such regulation has on businesses.
The Republicans are supposed to stand for limited government. They represent people that want to be left alone to conduct their business, that don’t want a huge portion of their income taxed. They are also supposed to support people that do not want their personal communications monitored. They are supposed to represent the ‘live free of die’ credo. But, under Bush, they are failing on all fronts.
Spending is through the roof. The government is becoming entangled in more and more areas of civilian life, including faith-based organizations. The President has passed enormous new programs, including the No Child Left Behind bill and the Medicare prescription drug benefit. We are engaged in a never ending Global War on Terrorism. And the government is doing more snooping on ordinary citizens than at any time in our past.
The country needs a Republican Party that functions and that represents the values it purports to represent. But, we don’t have that right now. We have a party in power that pretends to support small government and civil liberties, but that, in reality, does not support small government and civil liberties.
We have a government that is controlled by big business interests and supported by religious fundamentalists. As bad as the Democrats are, it is the broken Republican Party that is the biggest danger to the Republic.
I have never been a Republican. And even if the Republicans reformed themselves, I still wouldn’t vote for them. Yet, for the sake of the nation, I hope the Republicans shake themselves out of their stupor and return to their roots.
The country needs and deserves to have two functioning parties that balance out the competing interests of the rich and the poor, the employers and the employees, and the socially conservative versus the socially progressive. We don’t have that now.
