Deceptive Republicans
Screwed By Your Own Party
By Daniel Muniz

I am always outraged whenever I hear Republicans say that liberals are taking this country to socialism. I often correct my contemporaries by explaining that “conservatives” also need to be included in this accusation because so many of them have no problem with wasteful spending and huge entitlement programs.

Overall, I am just sick and tired of the GOP rank and file as well as the national and state leadership lamenting about out-of-control spending and worthless government programs, yet they are perfectly willing to back and finance Republican candidates and elected officials who embrace many colossal boondoggles.

My colleague John Turner perfectly captures my sentiment in this excerpt from one of his articles:

“…how is getting screwed by someone because he is a Republican somehow better than getting screwed by someone who is a Democrat? I’m still screwed. Is it supposed to be more palatable because the person doing the screwing is a member of “my” party rather than a different one?”

The bottom line is that the GOP has been screwing conservatives for years. But what is outrageous is that Republicans have been enabling all of these pork-and-barrel dirt bags by continually voting for them and financially supporting their campaigns. Even though many of them may disagree with wasteful spending they feel that in the big picture all that counts is that there is an R beside the politician’s name when comes time to vote.

Somehow in this big picture, just as long as the politician is a Republican he or she will help the Party in the long run because “majority rules” in politics.

Okay, so we are going to have to get shafted from time to time (perhaps all the time) because these people are pretty much liberals but at least they are on our side. And with these Republicans in Name Only (RINO) on our side means that as a party we have enormous leverage because of the “economies of scale” that it takes to pass legislation. That ability alone gives the GOP tremendous political power.

The problem with such a philosophy is that the Republican Party constantly has to make deals with the devil in order to get any meaningful legislation passed. Realistically, that wouldn’t be such a bad bargain as long as conservatives still got something of value out of it. But as time goes on, such “meaningful” legislation is no longer a priority thus conservative principles are not only ignored but ridiculed and lambasted by the RINOs.

So all that conservatives end up with is having plenty of Republicans who talk and sound like a conservative but when it comes to wasteful spending, they are identical to liberals.

Perhaps the worst side effect is that these parasites go on to infect decent conservative Republican officeholders. People who once had good records when it comes to limited government, economic freedom, and fiscal conservatism have to practically sign their life away because of the deals they made with liberal Republicans. That in turn erodes the conservative movement since there are now fewer principles to adhere to.

But the worst of all, there is a sophisticated level of gamesmanship involved.

Non-profit organizations and plenty of corporations have figured out a long time ago that the best way to make money is not to earn it, but to have the government give it to you for free. So in other words, they see politicians and candidates as nothing more than an ATM machine where they pull out cash for their pet projects. They cozy up with these elected officials and grease their palms with campaign contributions and other nefarious means of support. The consequence is the proliferation of corporate welfare on an unimaginable scale along with huge entitlement programs.

As a result, these politicians have also quickly discovered that the easiest way to win votes is not to earn them with their convictions and principles, but to buy them. So they have no problem being an ATM machine and they have willingly opened up the spigots for wasteful spending and corporate welfare. Of course they make it sound like they are promoting the common good because all of these government programs have such good intentions but all they are doing is just lining the pockets of these non-profit organizations and corporations.

I suppose what bothers me the most is that so many earnest conservatives have absolutely no problems supporting and voting for these parasites even though these very same politicians are taking our country down the path to socialism. They just see it as a choice between the lesser of two evils.

The problem is that once a politician has passed a certain threshold, they are practically indistinguishable from their opponents because they both desire the same outcome. The only difference is that one of them belongs to your party and the other doesn’t. Ultimately, that is no choice at all.

So if conservatives really want to change the composition of the GOP, then they need to stop enjoying the screw job they are getting from the Republicans in office. And next, they need to stop deceiving themselves into thinking that they are getting a good deal just because the person they helped elect was a Republican.

And finally, more conservatives need to reach an intellectual honesty.

Whenever somebody gets on a soapbox and is righteously indignant because of so many totally worthless government programs and wasteful spending, they better include conservatives in their accusations instead of solely laying the blame on liberals.

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