The Base

Maybe my beef isn't with the Republican party, but with many Republicans themselves - what is called the party's "base." What follows (use bugmenot to log in) is a concentrated form of what's wrong with the party, and America at large:

The demographics of the GOP also make a hard-right run tempting. Recently, pollster Tony Fabrizio has been asking Republican voters whether their most important goal "is to promote individual freedom by reducing the size and scope of government and its intrusion into the lives of its citizens" or "to promote traditional values by protecting traditional marriage and the life of the unborn." In his most recent survey, 34 percent of Republicans take the freedom position and 49 percent take the values position.

Eye on the ball, guys! You're so caught up in your vapid religious fervor that you've lost sight of the most important tenet: freedom. Liberty - remember that stuff? Noooo..... it's far more important to make sure everyone behaves as you want them to. Dependancy on the state is a small price to pay to "spread the word of God."

I hate evangelism and Evangelical/Charismatic Christianity, as its results make no concession for personal responsibility or public conduct. And its music sucks. Yesterday on Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan, Joe Lieberman said:

I think that most people in public life, and I will speak of myself, I've found that if you're honest about who you are, people respect that. Even if who you are may involve some religious practices that are different from the ones that they have. But ultimately I come back to what I said earlier: When you're in public office, your responsibility cannot primarily be to your faith, or the doctrines of it, it has to be to the Constitution, to the interests of the country.

Sen. Joe Liberman, an Orthodox Jew, plainly states on national radio that the government cannot be beholden to the religious views of its officials, but to the interests and freedoms of the governed, and he's right. Real evangelism is practiced through living one's life as it would please their God, a life which will improve the lives of those they encounter. The New Right's evangelism of coersion, litigation and legislation which politically-activated megachurches across the country now employ is a dangerous, evil, and fundamentally wrong disposition of their faith's power to persuade, which is at the same time the result of a demonstrably unpersuasive and intellectually unsatisfactory set of beliefs. Their efforts at converting the unconverted haven't worked well enough using traditional methods, so they now write laws to control the acts of individuals.

The new base feel that only jurists who will overturn Roe v. Wade are suitable for the bench, that only Presidents who are "true believers" are fit to govern. In truth, the new base of the Republican party let their doctrine hijack the agenda - an agenda which now eclipses liberty and subjugates the governed. What would happen if the Administration nominated a homosexual to an appointed position? That would be fun, but also completely outside the realm of possibility.

To the New Right I say this: Your Messianic Complex is an outrageous corruption of the human spirit and the power to govern. The legacy of your "faith" is now going to be bigger government and higher taxes, with less liberty available to all. You will have achieved what LBJ and Ted Kennedy never could. All this simply for your charismatic religious comfort, to aid in your "Mission." You sicken me. Go to South Carolina. Or better yet - go to Iran. You'll be much more comfortable there.

We need Newt back.