RINO...
Boy, I've got a lot to carp about tonight. There are several other things I want to write about as well, but I think I'll stop with this one.
When did independent thought become a liability in the minds of the far Right? At what point did Freedom of Speech become "Freedom to speak whatever we agree with"?
Since early in the Clinton administration, the word "liberal" has been increasingly demonized, as though somehow simply being associated with any thought that might not be in lock-step with the conservative far-Right was some sort of crime against humanity.
But now there's a new term floating around, "RINO". It stands for "Republican In Name Only", and it's slung at people like John McCain, George Voinovich and any other Republican who doesn't march in lock step with the administration, preferring instead to DO THEIR JOBS and be a voice of independent validation for and/or check and balance on policy coming out of the Executive branch.
These people may be centrist Republicans, but their beliefs definitely hold much closer to the traditional values of the Republican party (prior to the advent of the "Religious Right" and the neo-conservative movement) than they do to anything one would call liberal.
It's more name calling and demonizing with words, and to me it just shows yet again that this administration, and many of the people who support it, would rather engage in name calling than admit that one of our national strengths is that we're all free to express differing opinions, a freedom which allows all sides of an issue to be aired, hopefully leading to a wiser, better final course of action with regard to said issue.
We're defending freedom with our war in Iraq, they say, and since we're defending freedom, you really shouldn't be allowed to express yourself. It's hogwash.
Copyright (c) June 1, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net
posted by Liam at 6/01/2005 09:01:00 PM
7 Comments:
Calm down. I certainly don't care to stop anyone from expressing their beliefs but there are reasons why political parties are important. They are a way to focus individuals to work toward shared goals. That is what a party platform is. If party members who receive support both financial and orgaizational from the party go off the reservation and abandon those shared goals, I get d*** mad and want to make sure that money that I contribute to accomplish those shared goals is not distributed by the party to elect individuals who jump ship when needed. If they want to be independents, let them be independents. They don't need to get any support from me for doing it.
Thursday, June 02, 2005 12:59:00 AM
See, I disagree. I think the benefit of political parties is that they allow people with generally shared philosophies to share resources to help one another get elected. I do think *IN GENERAL* this also means people within a party will work together, but I have the most respect for politicians who stick to their principles.
Very few people agree 100% with one party or another, and anyone who claims that they do apparently bows to the will of the leadership, because what each party stands for wavers over time. Certainly the current Republican party stands for quite a few different and more extreme things than the same party of 20 or 30 years ago. Anyone over 50 who says they've been a Republican, in 100% agreement with the party on all matters since they came of age is admitting that they've changed their opinion on a lot of things.
I don't believe that by joining a political party you agree to march in lock step with them. In the Army, soldiers are required to follow orders, but they are ALSO expected to refuse to follow orders which are counter to the law. This is why Lynndie England got into trouble. She probably was just following orders, but in our country, that's not considered sufficient reason for breaking the law.
The same HAS to be true of our politicians. If you disagree with the leadership of your party, you are morally obligated to follow your beliefs. You weren't elected by the party, you were elected by the people, the same people to whom you gave statements of your platform.
Falling into lock-step with the leadership is how things like Hitler's Third Reich came about. A few at the top behaving in increasingly wrong ways, and the rest blindly following out of some feeling of duty or honor.
Liam.
Thursday, June 02, 2005 8:46:00 AM
Liam,
Have you ever played a team sport?
Thursday, June 02, 2005 10:19:00 AM
Yes, but government isn't a team sport. Government (at least under our system) is supposed to be about representing the interests and wishes of your constituents first and foremost. They are who voted you in, they are who you work for. You don't work for your party.
As a result, if you were elected on a platform of centrist ideals, you are not doing your job if you follow the party line when it diverges from those ideals.
When I vote for a governor or a senator or a congressman, I vote for a person based on who they are, not based on what party they belong to. As such, I expect them to remain true to who they are (or at least, who they presented themselves to be) in their governing, even (I might even say especially) when their views clash with their party's, because those are the issues that most stand out in the campaign.
Our leaders do not work for the party. They work for us. And blindly following the party is *NOT* working for us.
Liam.
Thursday, June 02, 2005 11:13:00 AM
Government is not but managing the governmental process is.
Thursday, June 02, 2005 11:19:00 AM
Liam, you cockeyed optimist!
It would be great if each of our reps was there looking out for the best interests of just their own constituancy, but if that was the case, nothing would ever get done. Politics is a dirty rotten business, that's the nature of it, or I guess, the nature of humans. We elect our politicians to do the dirty rotten work so we don't have to do it ourselves.
I wish to, that it was a fair give and take of ideas, but alas, we humans are just not up to that task.
Saturday, June 04, 2005 8:08:00 AM
Wader,
You're probably right. But it would really be nice if we'd elect the BEST of us occasionally, instead of just more of the same as the rest of us, or in some cases, the WORST of us.
It'd be nice if they at least TRIED.
But you're right, maybe, I've lost sight of human failings, like the liberals who keep beating the same welfare state drum because they have identified a problem and can't think of any OTHER way to fix it, and would rather do something that doesn't work than be seen as doing nothing. Or like the communists, who haven't yet figured out that on a scale larger than a large family, Communism is in direct contradiction to basic human nature.
Liam.
Monday, June 06, 2005 10:34:00 AM
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