Is the Party Over?
Deborah Venable
10/04/06
Some
are claiming that the Republican Party is as dead as the Democrat Party to the
central issues of standing for American sovereignty and freedom, wise economic
decisions, and morality based government.
It would seem that way at times, but that’s politics for you.
Politics
uses parties to keep the public off balance and off point to so many
shenanigans that would otherwise never pass muster with a freedom loving people
who wish only to govern themselves in the most un-invasive way possible. Most career politicians learn early where
their greatest loyalty must lie in order for them to achieve and hold onto
their political goal. The Party. Individual politicians who choose to deviate
from The Party in talking points or support for one issue or another, even if
they are truly representing constituents, literally put their political careers
at risk. All of their concerns must
pass the sniff test of the party that supports them or they will invariably end
up on the garbage heap of has-been politicians. The Party is merciless.
The
ideal behind a good two-party system is that people who wish to represent their
constituents would be able to align themselves with others who shared their
general take on various elements of governmental concern. Their general
take. That does not mean that “leaders”
of the two dissimilar groups should have mandating power to determine the fate
of every politician they sponsor. It
simply means that such leaders get together every now and then to shore up any
planks in their platforms that may be weak.
It happens – structures can grow weak from all that standing around on
them.
Repairing
the party platforms requires committing to solutions for real issues dealing
with foreign and domestic, social and economic concerns. One party cannot just sling mud at the
other’s planks and hope to make their
own platform fit for standing
on. Shoring up the platform requires
more concentrated attention to its foundation.
Going back to the original platform “blueprints” every now and then to
check specifications on quality for proposed solutions wouldn’t hurt either.
All too often that just doesn’t happen.
How
many times have we heard citizens and politicians alike saying something like,
“I didn’t leave my party – my party left me”?
It
would seem sometimes that both major political parties have left us all afloat
in a sea of confusion over just where the divergence in the parties’ ideals
is. That happened because both parties
forgot to “check the specs” that were common to both of them in the beginning
of our experiment in self-governance - the specification that called for
self-governance to begin with a requirement of certain morals, for
instance. Now, that one is all but
forgotten these days by the Democrats, and even some Republicans.
Okay,
enough of this dancing around the real subject here. Once more we find a person of questionable morals, Mark Foley,
ensconced in Congress by the Party of morality (supposedly) and the timing of his
exposure is impeccable for the Party of fewer morals (supposedly).
But
what do we, the governing governed, really expect, folks? If we evaluate our own ranks for moral
content and then do a straight across, representative comparison by percentage
of those whom we elect, why would it surprise us to find even more immorality
among those representatives than we currently know about?
It
should be a matter of course to find these people, if the parties were truly
doing their jobs, and drop them like the hot potatoes they are regardless of
the effects on party power and control.
(The fact that it doesn’t happen nearly as often in the Democrat Party
as it does in the Republican Party simply earns both the previously noted
morality labels.)
The
whole point is this: It’s Party Time
and we are all being asked to rock and roll to the tune of “Politics As Usual” while our drinks
are being spiked with cracked logic.
Where morality is concerned Republicans have gotten awful good at
falling on their own swords, while Democrats get to stand indignantly at the
thought we should care about their “personal lives” as they continue without
disgrace and many times even get re-elected to their offices.
How
do any of these creeps get
elected to represent us? Better
question: How do any of these creeps
get their names on ballots so that we can
elect them?
Party
politics, folks. That’s the answer to
both questions.
So,
this week the Democrats are wrapping themselves in mock indignation over the
actions of Mark Foley, (R ) FL, and the inactions of the Republican Party
leadership – specifically Speaker Hastert, with the tired old question, “what
did they know and when did they know it?”
Well, let’s first examine “what ELSE did they know and when did they
know it?”
Republicans
are constantly reminded that the whole issue of homosexuality is off limits as
a moral topic they may make judgments on, so even though it would now seem that
a good many Republicans were aware of Foley’s “sexual preference,” and even
some of his too chummy correspondence with the younger set, they knew better
than to raise a stink about it. (I don’t even want to guess how Foley ended up
on the ballot as a Republican in the first place, but it does illustrate my
previous points.) The fact that this
guy had an eye for the boy pages is certainly disgusting, but what about
excusing actual molestation of pages in the past? How about the rape charges leveled against that Democrat Icon,
former president Clinton? Republicans
had a front row seat in many past scandals involving elected members of the
Democrat Party, who did not fall on their swords, but instead continued in
office and continued to be re-elected time after time AFTER their
scandals.
Not
so for previous Republican jerks, who fell off the morality wagon.
I’m
not even bothering to provide research links to this stuff, folks, because it’s
all over the newspapers and web if you want to look. Personally, I don’t think it deserves all the media hoopla right
now. Some in the “Republican know” have
already conceded that Florida voters in Foley’s district will be too dumb to
see through the obvious, hold their noses and place their vote beside his name,
which will still be on the ballot, even though that vote will actually go to
the probable Republican replacement, Joe Negron. Voters aren’t given much credit for brains these days.
That
brings up another question: Why in the
world, in this day and age, can’t these little ballot problems be cleared up
and kept current? It makes absolutely
no sense to me that ballots cannot be edited a lot closer to Election Day than
they ever are. Maybe back in the Pony
Express days we could understand it – but certainly not now. Just another sign of the times I’m afraid –
off balance and off point – that’s all the public is supposed to be as we try
to exercise our rights.
So,
as I take another turn around the dance floor to the rock and roll tune, “All
Shook Up”, and take another sip of my delicious cracked logic drink, The Party
is going strong. The Party rules the
roost in politics. Period. The planks of both platforms may be rotting
away, but few people are trying to stand on them any more anyway – so who
cares? For those that do, they better
seriously consider wearing life vests if they can’t swim.