Republicans Behaving Badly

President Obama and his policies seem to bring out the worst in those people who constitute the current Republican base. Even when the topic is something as boring as government-insured healthcare!

I think I know the roots of this Mad Tea Party.

The core issue in this dispute is the role of government. Republicans believe that the government should have a role in our defense and little else. They trust corporations more than they trust government. Democrats, on the other hand, believe that government also has an obligation to ensure the general welfare and equal protection of American citizens. When corporations, public and private, fail to ensure the general welfare and equal protection of American citizens, democrats believe the government is obliged to intervene on behalf of American citizens. Because Republicans do not recognize any constitutional obligation for ensuring the well-being and rights of anyone beyond themselves, they are outraged that the arc of American politics since 1901 has inclined more and more in favor of the democratic ideal. This has been true even under Republican Presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt [Pure Food & Drug Act, Employers Liability Act, railroad regulation, and trust-busting] and Richard Nixon [Consumer Product Safety Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration]. But it has been most dramatic under Democratic Presidents, such as Franklin Roosevelt, who was responsible for the National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Administration, and Lyndon Johnson, who pushed for Medicare and The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Republicans fought loudly and bitterly against Social Security, Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act. Franklin Roosevelt, like Obama today, was accused of engaging in socialism.

So, what happened after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s programs were enacted? American capitalism flourished and spread. And it will do so again with “Obamacare.” Far from destroying capitalism, it will encourage Americans to try setting up businesses, because they will never have to worry about finding and paying for individual health insurance for themselves and their families at the same time that they are trying to get a business going. “Obamacare” will be there.

The reality is that the government programs which were instituted to ensure the general welfare and equal protection of American citizens have helped maintain our society. The “America” that they replaced was an America that was obscene in its cruelty and callousness toward the well-being of Americans. Maybe Republicans love “America”, they just dislike and distrust their fellow Americans. We can not let this country fail just to calm their paranoia.

Republicans must remember that Obama has the power and the authority that a majority of the American voters gave him. He is doing what the majority of Americans voters elected him to do. Republicans will have to live with this like I had to live with the fact that George W. Bush was my President for 8 years.