Country and Party

The Ex-Prosecutor commented in response to Barone: "The coming Obama thugacracy" with a very thoughtful statement about party affiliation. I want to share Ex-P’s comment with you, after which I’ll say some things about where I stand on party affiliation. Then it’s your turn.

Before reading on you may want to take a look at the Barone post.

Here’s the Ex-Prosecutor - - -

I agree with this post. However, I believe that the Republicans have brought all of this on themselves, and unfortunately, as the article points out, on the rest of us.

The first vote of my life was for Barry Goldwater and, since then, I have been a very dependable Republican voter and contributor. Since then, I have seen the Republican Party shift away from long-time members such as myself. Former Senate majority leader Howard Baker was a moderate Republican, meaning that he was conservative on fiscal issues and moderate on social issues.

These days, the only way he could make it past the Republican primary in Tennessee is if two conservatives split the conservative vote. In fact, this happened in our last election to the benefit of the moderate candidate.

Senator Baker was known as the "Great Conciliator." Today, I see few conciliators in the Republican Party, for the party would not tolerate positions taken by a present day Howard Baker.

I have made quick comparisons of the Republican party platforms over the past years. They are reflective of and responsive to the problems and issues of the time, including the cold war, Roe v. Wade, abortion and same-sex marriage. That of 1976 blisters the Democrats, but would be an indictment of the current Republican party.

It may be that the issues and problems of our time make compromises much more difficult. However, the current Republican party has placed much greater emphasis on social issues and ignored the party's most basic beliefs, as set out in the 1976 platform, as to the role of government and individual rights.

In short, I want to be a member of the Republican party of 40 years ago.

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Thanks, Ex-P.

As for my party affiliation, I’m registered as an “unaffiliated” voter.

I almost always vote a split ballot.

If you pushed me to say more than that, I’d answer you this way: I’m not a Republican, but I can’t be a Democrat.

The U.S. military is America’s most essential organization.

Take it off the board and the killers dominating Pakistan’s tribal areas, practicing genocide in parts of Africa, and teaching women and children to make themselves human bombs in Iraq and Israel would soon be over here.

I don’t want that so I always look at both parties and ask myself how they’re treating our military.

Neither party treats our servicemen and women nor their families as well as they ought to be treated.

But the Rs don’t slime our military and put our servicemen's and women’s lives at greater risk the way too many Dems do.

I’m not just talking about the rank-and-file Dems in Move On.org who help pay for and endorse things like a General Betray Us ad.

Or those who jump on and hype anything that reflects poorly on our military without waiting for facts or by ignoring them outright. A lot of Dems controlling news media are that way as are millions who approve such media.

If it was just millions of rank-and-file Dems engaging in that reprehensible behavior, I’d say their leaders need to rein them in and allow that maybe I could be a Dem.

But when it comes to sliming our military and thereby putting our serving forces lives at greater risk than need be, many Dem leaders lead and others won’t call them out for what they are.

Ted Kennedy at the time of Abu Ghraib said Saddam’s prison system’s been re-opened under U. S. military direction. Dick Durbin compared our military at Gitmo to the Gestapo and Pol Pot’s killers. Jack Murtha announces our Marines at Haditha have killed civilians “in cold blood.”

Their calumnies have been used to great effect by America's enemies.

There’s really no need for al Qeada to make up lies to inflame sentiment against our troops and recruit future terrorists. Al Qaeda only needs to quote the lies of Kennedy, Durbin and Murtha.

Traveling around the world I hear and read those lies quoted back by everyone from the well-intentioned, but uninformed to the chronic, zealous anti-American including, especially, the Jew-haters.

There’s a lot more I could say about all this, but I've said enough to make my point to reasonable people.

There are other reasons why I couldn’t be a Dem and I’ll post on a few of them soon.

Now where are you in terms of party affiliation?