Posted on 07/17/2005 7:46:15 AM PDT by joe_oak
June 26, 2005
Guest Viewpoint: The party's over for betrayed Republican
By James Chaney
As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.
I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal.
I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste. I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation. I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government. I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican.
My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.
My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things.
Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation's future on three core issues: how we led the world on the environment, how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn't go bankrupt, and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world's stage as its only superpower. Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts. And we've done it in such a way that we shouldn't be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again.
My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming. We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we've chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.
We have mortgaged the country's fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we've simply changed the rules. I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do. But the party has yet to explain to me why it's a good thing now, other than to say "... because we say so."
Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower. This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.
Republican decisions made in 2002 and 2003 have killed almost 2,000 of the most capable patriots our country has to offer - volunteers, every one. Support for those decisions was gathered through what appeared at the time to be spin and marketing, but which now turns out to have been deliberate planning and falsehood. The Blair government's internal documentation only confirms what has been suspected for years: Americans are dying every day for Republican lies first crafted in 2002, expanded and embellished upon in 2003, and which continue to this day. This calculated deception is now burned into the legacy of the party, every bit as much as Reagan's triumph in the Cold War, or Nixon's disgrace over Watergate.
I could go on and on - about how we have compromised our international integrity by sanctioning torture, about how we are systematically dismantling the civil liberties that it took us two centuries to define and preserve, and about how we have substituted bullying, brinksmanship and "staying on message" for real political discourse - but those three issues are enough.
We're poisoning our planet through gluttony and ignorance.
We're teetering on the brink of self-inflicted insolvency.
We're selfishly and needlessly sacrificing the best of a generation.
And we're lying about it.
While it has compiled this record of failure and deception, the party which I'm leaving today has spent its time, energy and political capital trying to save Terri Schiavo, battling the threat of single-sex unions, fighting medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, manufacturing political crises over presidential nominees, and selling privatized Social Security to an America that isn't buying. We fiddle while Rome burns.
Enough is enough. I quit.
James Chaney is a Eugene attorney who has been in private practice for more than 20 years, and who has been a registered Republican since 1980.
GUEST VIEWPOINT
It's a joke from a rat op.
Boy, that was sharp of you.
But I notice that guy's identified as "COMMERCIAL/MANAGER."
Dan
I'm sorry to tell yall this, but there are some fairly high-ranking former Republicans--people who worked for Reagan and George H.W. Bush--who are appalled with the actions of our president. Many of them even voted for Kerry and are supporting Mark Warner for president in 2008. I don't understand it and don't condone it, but it's true. I'm in touch with people in this group. During the last election they wrote articles that appeared in major newspapers and had enough money and influence to take out anti-Bush ads, which cost many thousands of bucks. So it's quite possible that joe-oak is on the level, even if we don't believe as he does.
And by the way--don't kill the messenger. I don't support such ideas; I'm just reporting that there actually are ex-Republicans like this, driven away by Iraq, the immigration problem, the deficit, and other issues.
But not Reagan?
That is why so many of us are so teed off.
GWB and the RINOs in the Senate have sold us out in so many ways that they in fact have done more harm than good at this point.
The list is too long go through right now, but after reading the CAFTA bill and the CFR plan for 2010 that GWB, FOX, and Canada apparently agreed to at the "Ranch", I would vote for almost anyone other than the GOP or the RATS at this point.
i am sorry, i just don't believe you. i also know people who worked in both of those administrations and none of them would DREAM of voting for a dem. i can fathom people being disappointed in W in one way or another, but turning to the DEMOCRAT party as the answer just defies credulity.
Just curious, are any of them socially conservative?
I like the idea of recording the "poll" participants votes and for the ones voting for obvious democrat/nazis/communist positions, put them on the troll watch list. Make it easy for the Admins to zap those weasels.
Are you sure you haven't always been an enviro-nazi moron? Cuz it sounds like you are.
Global warming has so much invented science going FOR it, I can't even begin to fathom how this statement can be made with a straight face.
LOL!
they can't possibly be. no true believer is going to look to the democratic party for the answer to ANYTHING.
Good catch, and it appears to confirm the article's appearance as a peice of clumsy, amateurish propaganda.
Opensecrets.org is a lot of fun. I see Joe Wilson spent a bunch of money on Democrats, too.
I agree 100%. I am sick of where this administration is going, but to vote for a RAT???? NEVER!
The point is that many many of us, including myself, volunteered our time, MUCH MORE THAN THE BUSHBOTS ON HERE!!!!!, to elect a conservative or at least someone approaching a conservative.
Instead, we got a b.s. immigration plan thrown at us, CFR bill signed, prescription drug bill, runaway spending, etc etc.
I agree.
Yeah, but is it the same fella? I dunno.
How many James Chaney's are in Eugene Oregon?
I'll hold your crying towel while you jump off the cliff. And don't make too much noise. The moonbats are sleeping.
Too true. The problem with this article, though, is it's written by a liberal propagandist and one who isn't very skilled in his job.
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