Me? A RINO? Could be…

Posted by Troy Eckhardt on February 26, 2011 at 2:55 pm

One of my friends recently asked me why I had written that Bush II is a RINO, and he suggested that perhaps I should write a manifesto on what a Republican should be, just so everyone could sleep at night. He was concerned that there might be people to the right of Georgie. Although clearly no manifesto, my reply does go a bit toward defining what a true Republican should be, and below is part of that reply.

Bush is to the left of many politicians in the country, and to the left of me as well. I don’t think it’s all that scary to be further to the right than Bush. It’s also not that difficult or uncommon. It’s almost like being more liberal than Hillary Clinton. She seems really liberal, but then there’s Rosie O’Donnell and Nancy Pelosi for perspective.

As for what Republicans should be, they should be (in part) exactly what Democrats should be: proponents of extremely limited federal governmental control over individuals and states, with powers limited to those involving national defense (including securing borders), infrastructure, and certain commerce/transportation (interstate and international) – ONLY what is granted to the federal government by the Constitution. No education, no welfare, no medicaid, no medicare, no social security, no Pell grants, no student loans, no arts endowments, no public broadcasting, no regulation of communication, no religious endorsements (including atheism), No say over public prayer, no say over abortion, no say over marriage (homosexual or otherwise), no say over manger scenes in public, no say over statues of the ten commandments, no salaries for most federal politicians and certainly no pensions and perks for federal politicians, no FDA, no TSA, no FCC, no EPA, no community planning, no attempts to try to enact legislation keeping some of us from offending others of us.

We have all of this blather over “my tax dollars shouldn’t go here or there”, and “rich people should pay the taxes of the poor”, blah, blah, blah. How about this: The federal government should be able to finance everything the Constitution allows for far less than 1% of all money earned as income in the USA. Most “poor” people spend less than that on cable TV. Of course, state taxes are another matter.

The Constitution limits the federal government, and according to the tenth amendment, all power not given to the federal government by the rest of the Constitution are not simply up for grabs – they are powers that belong to the individual states and the people. I am a “tenther,” and liberals may feel free to label me as such, although the term will never be as well-used as “teabagger” because it doesn’t refer to some vulgar sexual act. It seems moonbats LOVE referring to others in obscene terms. By the way, I don’t care that a moronic conservative first used the teabagger term – he did so without knowing about the perversity associated with it. A liberal leftmedia mouthpiece did know, and ran with it because he thought it was amusing, and the thundering herd of social liberals sucked it right up.

It is adherence to a strict interpretation of the Constitution that conservatives should be trying to conserve, and any “progress” made by “progressives” away from this cause is REgression – regression to previous failed systems of government.

The Constitution is a four-page document. We can’t even find a single piece of basic legislation THAT short any more. FOUR PAGES of powers given to the federal government. That’s it. And most of that space is devoted to the logistics of the branches’ setup.

Furthermore, and as distinguished from Democrats, Republicans should actually recognize that the country is a republic, and they should despise democracy as much as the founders of the country did. They should also not be in favor of the invasion of other countries. Bush failed in these regards even more than Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, etc.

The problem comes down to an issue with authority and the absolutes that derive from authority, really. Almost all liberals, and all but the most thoughtful Republicans really seem to despise authority. They want no God with absolute values troubling them. They want no pesky antique document to literally mean the words printed on it.

For the record, I am registered as a Republican at the moment for the sake of voting in primary elections only – I don’t disagree with most Republicans on many issues, but I do disagree with making them the business of the federal government. I suppose that makes me a RINO, too. Perhaps RINOs who admit it aren’t really RINOS.

Lately I have considered registering as a Democrat for the same reason – I think I could do more good voting for democrat candidates who aren’t loonies – if I can find any.