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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 10/21/10

DON'T BE A DICK: Four Principles of the New Republican Mentality

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Message Lee Patton
"I don't want to pay for your neighbor's breast cancer," a recent retiree blurted during a discussion of health care reform. A very satisfied new recipient of Medicare services (triple-bypass heart surgery), he added, "Who knows whether it's her fault or not? Bottom line, it's not fair. It's her problem, not mine."

Let's call him Dick. He stands for the New Republican, and if polls are accurate he may well reflect today's average American. Since we believe in majority rule, we'd better try to understand the way Dick thinks because Dick may soon be ruling us. Again.

For most of his life, Dick was not engaged in politics. His parents were Republicans, and when he first signed up to vote, he checked "R" because that's what his dad said to do. He's not a Tea Party fanatic. Sarah Palin fascinates him less for her right-wing agenda than some librarian-letting-down-her-hair fantasy. Most of all, Dick is not a socially evolved Republican in the mold of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, or Earl Warren. Dick cannot name the historic accomplishments of these three GOP giants. They are vague figures in that dim, featureless era he calls "the past."

Dick has been successful in business -- real estate -- and in personal relationships. He's maintained a respectful marriage and raised decent, healthy kids. He's a good guy to chat with about the weather, pet antics, stock market angst, and action flicks. Concerning politics, though, this New Republican has a maddening, seemingly illogical mentality. Despite his adult accomplishments and status as a grandfather, when it comes to the public arena -- societal concerns, community necessities -- he is mentally arrested. To call his political mentality childish is to insult children. Dick advocates limited government but favors government surveillance of private citizens and endorses detention of suspects without charges. Dick gets red-faced with anger about deficits, but approved of the Republican raid on the huge Clinton surplus in 2001 and has no problem transferring taxpayer dollars to wealthy individuals, large corporations, and no-bid military contractors. He flaunts patriotism and grows misty over "America," but openly resents the vast majority of the fellow citizens who make up America. He professes to love our country but defends the destruction of our countryside; he supports multinationals that blast mountaintops in West Virginia, poison the Hudson River, and slick the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, his positions may seem contradictory. But if we understand four key underlying principles of the New Republican, we can glean the rationale for Dick's attitudes. Although the four pillars holding up Dick's mentality may be primitive and self-serving, they are logical.

1. Unwillingness to Pay for Programs that Help Strangers

Dick has no empathy or compassion beyond his small circle of family and friends. This accounts for his blithe disregard of our young neighbor's cancer (Dick has never really met her). He despises the very thought of "government health care," but considers his life-saving, Medicare-funded surgery nothing less than his due. (Despite his cigar-smoking, red-meat-chomping, whiskey-swilling ways). He had no objections to his dying mother's government-funded, taxpayer charity when doctors took heroic measures to keep her alive -- comatose and miserable -- for a few more insanely expensive days. Dick saw no ethical conundrum because it was his mom, not some stranger's mother.

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Lee Patton, a Denverite, writes fiction, drama, poetry and nonfiction.
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