Believe It - The Republicans Welcome the Lunatics

I grew up in a conservative town, in a Missouri Lutheran churches and day schools educational environment, and a generally Republican political oriented family. As far as I know, my mom, grandmother, grandfather and father voted for exactly on Democrat in their lives, and I was on his campaign staff. I had found some issues of peace and social justice that moved me to work for him. My conversion had begun.

These days, I am very much an independent voter. I live in Illinois, where:

• the local Democrats have given us the likes of Governor Blagojevich currently in prison for various, "creative accounting" activities;
• his predecessor, a Republican, is serving a similar term for similar activities;
• in Chicago, we keep a scorecard on how long alderman prison;
• where the Tony Rescoe bribery scandal sends both Republicans and Democrats to federal and state institutions.

Crooks so infest our politics, one of the local papers was able to calculate the average cost of corruption per taxpayer. Being an independent makes sense.

That observed, I think that this year, there is literally no excuse for voting Republican at any level. These people have opened the doors and let the loony right-wing fanatics into their counsels. Consider the latest example, a particularly nutty "Christian" (he seems to have his own nutcase definition of that word.) Mr. Fuqua, is a former legislator seeking to return to the Arkansas House of Representatives. He says of all things that we should change our laws so that parents can have the State execute, "rebellious children." I know, I did not believe it either. So here is a link to the actual text.

There is no rule that we have to have the GOP. Over the last 220 or so years, parties have formed, won, lost, and died. While in office, the Republicans have sought to make themselves indispensable, but they are not. If the entire Republican Party were consigned to a well deserved footnote in history books, a new opposition to the Democrats would arise. Hopefully, it might be a reasonably responsible new thing. It could not be worse.

Simple literacy requires that one vote, and vote for others. The Republican Party is simply not a valid choice.