On Not Voting Republican...

Vote Republican? Like Hell I will!

by

Keith Taylor





Icie Taylor was a cantankerous sort -- called herself as independent as a hog on ice no less. Icie's biggest cantanker was her assessment politics. She just never saw anything good in any Republican. I'm sure she never voted for one, not even if he was a good customer in the dilapidated general store she ran in northern Indiana's smallest hamlet, Sevastopol.



Icie was also my Mom. I idolized her, even though for the first eighty years of my life I was sure she was wrong -- dead wrong -- about Republicans. An entire organization could not possibly be that bad.



Now I'm not so sure, especially when I see the parade of fools holding forth on C-SPAN. One after the other they bloviate on the what they perceive to be the evils of sin and socialism on the floor of the House.



Then I have to wonder if, once again, Mom wasn't right. Nary an idea from those right folks varies from wisdom as perceived by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or Bill O'Reilly.



Their virtues would be more evident if they showed the ability to stop yammering about patriotism and showed some. Shutting down the government to protect God's will doesn't do it. Neither did eight years of trying to throw out a very effective president on spurious charges of lying under oath.



As they say in sporting contests, that was a nice try, but lying isn't just for Democrats. The icon of modern conservatism, Ronald Reagan, lied some thirty times under oath.



Some thirty times he smiled, said "by golly," gave us that disarming smile and swore "I don't remember " when he was deposed about the Iran-Contra affair. And in case someone wants to claim the onset of Alzheimers for the record breaking lapse of memory, Ronnie's Veep and successor G. H. W. Bush used the same cop-out. A huge computer couldn't calculate the odds of both forgetting every salient point of the biggest scandal of their administration.



It takes a tremendous leap of imagination to consider lying about a sex act to protect a marriage, a moral equivalency to lying about selling arms to a nation to a belligerent nation in order to help a rebellious one overthrow its own government.



But in a world bounded by lies leaping imaginations abound.



When today's Republicans get going, there is no telling what they will tell us. Truth is what they choose to believe, especially anything that has to do with science. Following the example of that noted climatologist, Rush Limbaugh, they simply choose not to believe climate change is a problem. Research on embryonic stem cells is abortion. So is most birth control.



When they lack proof or empirical evidence, they resort to childish wise cracks. Everybody remember Bush's childish comments about Gore? Ozone head indeed! Limbaugh evokes the same sarcasm with "duddle up duddle up duddle up."



But that was history. How about today?.



Yeah, how about it? It just keeps on getting worse. On the opening of the 112th Congress, the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader held a special news conference to take their bows. They paid lip service to the debt, national defense, terrorism, unemployment, and all the rest. But their overriding objective was to get rid of Obama!



And lies, the offense for which Clinton was impeached? The party wallowed in them. Not all Republicans told the most egregious ones, but if it fit the overriding objective, even those with a veneer of common sense sat back and smiled as fanatics repeated tales that Obama is a Muslim, socialist, Kenyan, unpatriotic because he didn't salute properly, or whatever sounds good in their zeal to thwart the democratic process.



Surely there are some good folks in today's Republican Party. Am I not being just cantankerous in refusing to even consider supporting them? Oh yes, but "considering" is as far as it goes. When the voting comes, it is unanimous. No dissent in today's Republican Party!



So Icie Taylor would probably smile if she learned that the baby of her family finally agreed with her about the bad guys. I will not vote for a Republican until we hear some of that loyal opposition stuff from them.

Wrap...



To borrow from one of the more visible ones: "Vote Republican? Like Hell I will!"



//Keith Taylor is a retired Navy officer living in Chula Vista, Ca. He can be reached at krtaylorxyz@aol.com //