The next time someone tells me there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans, I swear I’ll kick 'em in the shins.
Ok. I won’t. I’m amazingly non-violent. But I’ll still call you an ignorant sop, because while neither party is perfect, the fact of the matter is, the Democratic Party does give a damn about the country, and the current incarnation of the Republican Party simply does not.
And to you “independents” who plan to vote for a Republican this year, because the Democrats haven’t done enough, or because the change hasn’t come fast enough, or some other such nonsense, well, screw you, too. I’m sick of hearing it.
Have you heard? Not one Republican Senator voted to allow Wall Street reform to make it to the Senate floor. Not one! Isn’t this a hell of a democracy, when 57% of an elected body votes in favor of something, and it dies? The Democratic House passed even more stringent reform this past December, and received no support from Republicans on that, either.
And why do Republicans vote in lockstep on absolutely everything? I mean, why they always vote against the people is a good question. But is everything Democrats want to to so completely and utterly wrong that not one Republican can support it? And why do people refer to that as “party discipline”? That’s not discipline; that’s cowardice.
Party discipline is Democrats not wanting to smack the hell out of Ben Nelson because he’s too cowardly to do what’s right, and thinks the bleatings of a fringe group constitutes the thoughts and feelings of the entire population of Nebraska. I’ve been through Nebraska, and found the people quite charming. I would venture to guess that many of them lost a shitload of money the last few years, too, and many of them have either faced foreclosure or bankruptcy during that time because of the thievery on Wall Street. And for Nelson to invoke the name of the rich but seemingly honorable Warren Buffet as a rationale for his action in supporting a Republican filibuster, well, that's shameful on a level that rivals Stephen Baldwin.
If you’re a typical American, your retirement account lost money twice during the time Republicans were in complete charge. And you lost money because the casino you were playing in was rigged against you. I know the comparisons between the stock market and casinos have become cliché, but while Republicans were in charge, and in the wake of the repeal of a key law that protected you, it was eerily accurate. Actually, I take that back; that’s not fair to casinos, because casinos are actually honest and fair when dealing with taking your money. I mean, they tell you up front that you'll probably lose. Of course, that's because they’re heavily regulated and required to tell you.
Banks and other financial institutions, on the other hand, were not required to tell you they were even gambling with your money. And yes, folks, that was OUR money they were using to place bets. When they pay themselves tens of millions of dollars in bonuses, that's your money they're paying themselves with. How many bubbles do we have to go through over the course of 30 years before we finally figure out that our financial markets are rigged against us?
I'm here to tell you guys, the financial markets are rigged to screw you. And until there is regulation in those markets, they can do the same things over and over.
That’s what the latest reform bill is for; it’s to begin the process of making sure the banks and financial institutions are once again forced to act responsibly with our money.
And Republicans are against it.
They might as well admit they're against the United States Constitution, by the way.According to the Constitution, it’s the government’s job to protect our money when we put it into financial institutions. In Article I, Section 8, the Constitution mandates that Congress “regulate commerce.” And commercial banks are commerce. It's in the name. You know, "commercial"?
But the Republican Party has spent the last 30 years trying to pretend that such a mandate doesn’t exist. But it's not just banks; they're against any sort of regulation of anything. They believe in the god of the “free market,” a god which is proven not to exist, and they feel that any regulation whatsoever displeases their god.
So, over the last 30 years, they have removed as many regulations as they could, and spread the nonsense that “the market” can regulate itself. The result has been a series of bubbles and a largely stagnant economy. If they think the last bubble, in which our retirement accounts largely halved in value, and we found out the huge increases in home prices was little more than a scam, did not piss off a lot of people, they’d best think again. And if they’re in lockstep with their intent to stop financial services reform, then we should be intent on getting rid of the entire party come this November and November 2012.
I know elements of both parties that seem eerily similar, such as the dependence on money for survival, and a tendency to put political expediency ahead of principle on the part of some Democrats. But for God’s sake, look at the record. By and large, Democrats tend to still vote in favor of the people, and not huge corporations. If 59 Senators isn’t enough, then we need to make sure they have 67 votes, don’t we? In fact, given that a handful of them will still be cowards, let’s shoot for 75.
Republicans voted in lockstep against providing 30 million people with the ability to purchase health insurance and relieve the excessive strain on those who were already insured, as well as the businesses, large and small, which were paying for it. Almost all Democrats voted for providing health insurance to those people
In the midst of the worst recession since 1933, when millions of people were losing their jobs and/or their homes, retirement funds had been decimated and banks were on the brink of collapse, Republicans voted in lockstep AGAINST a very modest stimulus plan that included tax cuts for almost everyone. All but a handful of Democrats voted in favor of it.
Republicans have voted in lockstep against almost everything Democrats have proposed that would benefit the American people, to the point of messing with the unemployment benefits of a quarter of a million people, in lame attempts to make political hay with their base. Their sole purpose in life is to win elections. They are actually actively rooting for the economy and the government to fail, so that they can take over, and that’s simply unacceptable.
And that is by far the biggest difference between Democrats and those worthless Republicans. When George Bush, Jr. was appointed by the Supreme Court, while most of us thought he would be the incompetent moron he turned out to be, we were all hoping we were wrong. We would have been ecstatic if we have been proven wrong. When we were attacked on 9/11, we were all supportive, and hoping he would do the right thing. He didn’t, but we were rooting for him, because the good of the country should always be put ahead of any party or ideology.
Contrast that with the current incarnation of the Republican Party, folks. They are actively rooting for the President of the United States to fail. They've spent the last year and a half actively working against the interests of the country in favor of their party and ideology. They have actively tried to suppress any urges on the part of any of their membership to go against them and do what’s right for the country as a whole, to the point of actively working against anyone who shows any moderate tendencies at all. They are actively rooting against economic improvement, because they think continued misery will get them electoral victory this November.
Look at what they’ve done with a minority. Look at what they have blocked, or tried to block, since Democrats took over, and you’ll know exactly what you’ll get if they’re in a majority. They’ll get a lot of “no.” We can’t afford more “no.”
There is a lot of difference between Democrats and Republicans, folks; if you believe they’re cut from the same cloth, then you’re a closet Republican. Democrats care about the country, and Republicans simply do not. It’s really that drastic and that simple. Wake up.
