1. We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;
I encounter this "smaller government" refrain all the time, yet elected Republicans never move to actually advance that goal. More significantly, the conservative base doesn't seem to mind. For them, this position is rhetorical rather than ideological. I suspect that this is one of the most overinflated statistics in American politics, and that the number of true small-government conservatives is quite small. That's no surprise, since small government doesn't work in modern societies. Our government is already undersized as it is.
2. We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
One remarkable aspect of the past three years, during which Democrats have controlled Congress, is that the Republican minority has been absolutely unified in its opposition to nearly everything. Ironically, this efficiency of discipline is stark proof that the GOP has become severely dysfunctional. The reason is that nearly all Republicans in Congress are ultraconservatives.
History, to the extent it remembers them at all, will look back on today's Republican Party with the disdain that hindsight inevitably brings. Healthcare is one of the biggest problems in the country right now. The public option aside, this bill is full of badly needed reforms. It deserves broad bipartisan support. Yet only one Republican voted for healthcare reform in the House, and the Senate outcome will be similar. While it's possible that some of them will switch and vote in favor of the bill once it comes out of conference, the very real possibility that they won't is startling in its historical clarity.
3. We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
Hypocrites and opportunists. Earlier in this decade, when liberal interests were advocating for firm limits on pollution, it was the Republicans who introduced and popularized the cap and trade idea. It is, after all, a market-based solution that allows businesses to continue to pollute. It's pretty weak as far as environmental reform goes. And now they're against it anyway.
It's shrewd politics. Republicans operate by steering the dialogue as far to the right as they can. For healthcare reform, they portrayed a national single-payer system as commie-socialism, which scared the Democrats out of considering it in their legislation. Instead they compromised, proposing the public option. The Republicans immediately proceeded to portray the public option as commie-socialism. That's how they roll. They advance their agenda by portraying the other side's proposals as extreme. The Democrats are not currently effective in defending against that tactic. So the Republicans pull it again, and again, and again...including with environmental reform.
4. We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
This is one of the great ironies in the modern GOP: Many of the people who would most benefit from a strong organized labor movement in this country, are also some of the most reliably Republican voters.
It's just a sad, sad testament to the fact that many people can be made to believe anything. For anyone who doesn't make their money by plundering the country, there is no good argument whatsoever against strong labor.
5. We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
Heh. "Amnesty." I love how much contempt they can pack into single words and short phrases. The Republicans are very good at that. Sometimes I wish that the Republicans actually believed in the stuff they say they believe in. That way I could take some small pleasure in knowing that these idiots are haunted in their dreams by the thought of brown people seeing doctors.
6. We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
Two things here. First of all, no way in hell does "victory" mesh with any of the positions laid out in Item 1: smaller government, lower deficits, tax cuts, etc. I don't even know what Republicans would define as "victory" anymore, since by my definition victory in either country is for practical purposes totally out of reach. Second of all, the military's job is to implement the will of the civilian government. Advice is a part of that, but "recommendations" can only be given in response to pre-established objectives provided by the Executive. Anything beyond that is a huge no-no in the democratic system. I'm not saying that it hasn't happened before, or that it isn't happening now, but it shouldn't. In a democracy, it never should. The military gets its orders from the administration, not the other way around.
I suspect many Republicans would be just fine with sacrificing their freedom to live under a military dictatorship, but would soon find that it wasn't all it had been cracked up to be.
7. We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
At last! Here's one that makes a modicum of good sense. Unfortunately, that beauty is only skin deep. If you ask the Republicans what "containment" would entail, and how we might "eliminate" the nuclear weapons threat, the solutions they provide are useless or even counterproductive.
8. We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
Gay brown people seeing doctors...the horror.
9. We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion;
We already have healthcare rationing in this country. It's called "How much money ya got?" These make-believe government "bureaucrats" would have to be pretty damn atrocious to do a worse job than the private insurers of connecting people with the healthcare they need.
I see they couldn't resist tacking on that bit about abortion at the end, even though it has nothing to do with the rest of their point. Ah, the obsessions of the indignant and depraved...
10. We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;
I don't think there has been a single move so far by this administration to impose gun restrictions of any kind. Please let me know if I am mistaken. This is a fight the conservatives seem to have won for the time being.
