I wrote the above to appear in a newsletter for the National Federation of Republican Women soon after the tea. I had gotten my invitation to the White House Tea as a Regent for NFRW and because I had donated to No Child Left Behind. The sandwiches were delicious - but subsequent events have persuaded me that to remain loyal to America I need to ask that Laura's husband be impeached. Since it is clear the Republicans are not going to clean their own house I am urging Democrats to act now and remove both President Bush and Vice President Cheney from office.
As a long time Republican, who worked for Barry Goldwater, I have watched with dismay as events play out in the Administration of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. The reasons grow more compelling every day.
It is not that our military are dying in a war, but that the war was sold with lies and that the real reason over 2,500 Americans and God knows now many Iraqis have been killed is to stop the flow of oil to France and Russia. Those countries had just signed an oil deal with Saddam Hussein when the war began.
As events played out it became gut wrenchingly obvious to me that Bush and Cheney had not just overlooked their oaths of office; they had shredded the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, documents that any American should respect. Torture in the name of freedom? Taping Americans in the name of security? Someone has obviously lost their mind or is following an agenda that has nothing to do with their rhetoric.
In California they marched into the Republican State Convention several years back and just took over, overthrowing leadership that really represented the grassroots. Exerting control happens in many different ways and Rove most probably made sure of that first.
Republicans, the kind of people who believed and lived the ideas of Barry Goldwater, low taxation, local government, and individual rights, have been marginalized throughout the Republican Party. The only people left in positions of authority, for the most part, are either NeoCons or NeoCon sympathizers.
Long time organizations like the Republican Assemblies and the newly formed Republican Liberty Caucus despise Bush and understand that we stand on the brink of fascism. They do nothing but wring their hands, unfortunately. Some of that is probably fear; some comes from the Republican Command, "Thou shalt not speak evil of another Republican." I disagree.
I have always felt that political parties are just tools used to work for an agenda agreed on by those who are active. If we owe loyalty to anything it is to the principles for which America was founded. Today we have confused the word, 'rights,' with 'privileges.' Rights are not a list of specifics, they are the acknowledgment that each of us is born possessed of inherent rights to act, own the property we earn, and to be free in our own persons. That is Jefferson's, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Converting those God given rights to privileges made all of us subject to government when the whole idea was that our freedom existed before any government we adopted as a tool for ordering our human world.
Loyalty to a political party should never be stronger than your loyalty to that original vision of a people coming together to govern themselves, using persuasion and consent. Members of Congress should burn their party membership cards before being sworn. It is as if you felt loyalty to your hammer, a tool, instead of to the family you love who live in the house you built using that tool.
I have been wondering for a long time why Democrats have not taken action. John Conyers has proposed a censure, a good start. Others outside Congress are talking about impeachment. But nothing happens.
Why is the Democratic faction of Congress tip toeing around, pretending that all is well in Congressland?
I have a nasty streak of cynicism so answers did occur to me. I hope I am wrong, but my reason says I am dead on.
The Democratic contingent of Congress spends its time watching the steady roll of fascism through America's Institutions, silent where you would expect outrage, because they are all too aware that if they speak out their own dirty laundry will be dragged out for examination. They watched the appointment of federal judges carefully steered through the process of ratification through the system who had been solicited by the Federalist Society. Founded in 1982 by Republicans and Libertarians that organization had an agenda that includes lofty rhetoric that states, " that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be."
That is what they say. One wonders if they ever read it. This is one of those times when rhetoric is used as cover, I suppose. The actions of the Federalists included placing judges with a political agenda who do as they are told. Clarence Thomas was their shining moment and the destruction of Anita Hill business as usual. Time and several thorough books have determined the truth of those questions.
I think it likely that Democrats serving in Congress cringe at the idea of an investigation into matters they know will not stand the light of day in a court overseen by one of these Federalist graduates. The meaning of 'is' does not even come close to not being able to see the difference between the separation of the branches of government and the monolithic state that confronts our eyes today.
Remember the downcast eyes of Teddy Kennedy during the Clarence Thomas hearings. There is a reason that Democrats are afraid to speak out.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
