If you feed the
squirrels, there will be more of them …
And they’ll expect more and more from you.
That’s one lesson from the re-election of Obama to another
four-year term.
Those who want more free stuff voted for someone they thought
would give it to them. They didn’t want
the other guy who might stop giving stuff away so freely.
Screw who pays for it.
Like squirrels, they don’t care.
It’s free stuff and that’s all that matters.
Giving away stuff – or merely appearing to be doing so – was
a masterful stroke by the Democrats.
They made it seem that people could have anything they wanted, and never
have to pay for it. They treated the
voting public like a bunch of spoiled brats and the public sucked it up. Democrats were benevolent grandparents who
doted on every whim their constituents desired – I’m surprised they didn’t
promise everyone a pony and a bag of candy.
But they were aided in this election by the Republicans, who
once again showed an uncanny knack of refusing to recognize the blindingly
obvious. So before the shooting inside the tent gets really started, here’s
some less than subtle tips for the Republicans …
Get off the abortion
issue. Roe v. Wade is the law of the
land. Get over it. Now.
The Republican far right never seems to realize – or apparently care –
that this is an immensely personal issue.
Government has no role to play, either for or against. If you’re a Catholic or right-to-lifer opposed
to abortion, that’s your right; but that does not allow you to decide what is
right or wrong for other people. You
don’t know their circumstances, you don’t know their situation, and you are not
in a position to act as God, nor remotely qualified to take on that role,
despite what your priests or ministers may encourage you to believe.
Most Americans already think abortion should be “legal, safe … and rare.” You are never going to change their mind. Ghastly photos, debates over the precise
moment life begins, and screaming protests aren’t persuading anyone to your
cause. It’s done.
If you persist in your efforts to ban all abortions, you will lose elections again
and again. Trying to backdoor the issue
by incrementally banning abortions a procedure at a time, or making it so
unbearably difficult and personally degrading to request one will have the same
effect. You may think you are morally
right and doing God’s work, but God doesn’t vote in elections … everyday normal
folk do. You’ll lose.
And if by chance you do make abortion illegal, it won’t stop abortions – it
will just make them horrifyingly dangerous again, performed out of sight of
medical supervision and standards, resulting in increased deaths of women.
That’s not what the public wants. And
it’s probably not what your God wants.
About social issues
in general … Most Americans simply want to be left alone to live their
lives as they see fit and not do harm to others.
So take that cue – leave them alone. You’re
not the morality police. Whenever you
try to be it makes you look like a tool of small-minded, bigoted religious
extremists.
This is a democracy, not a theocracy; something the far
right needs to remember.
When you wander – or should I say blunder – around on issues that people feel
are personal you come across as overbearing and insensitive. And that costs you dearly at election
time.
You need to learn not to over-react. You
can’t let the most extreme social conservatives and religious fanatics in the
party be in control and dictate what is or isn’t acceptable. You need to view everything on social issues
with a longer-term perspective, rather than rise to the bait on the cause du
jour. Taking the bait feeds the
impression that Republicans are dangerous reactionaries, which, sadly, many
times you seem to be.
Not everything is a harbinger of the end of days.
For example, Sandra Fluke is clearly an idiot.
Yet you made her a heroine by attacking her. Forcing companies to pay for birth control may
be over the top, and violate the beliefs of some Catholic institutions, but you
should have let Catholics battle that out and not get involved. Instead, you rose to take the bait too
rapidly and aggressively and were soundly bludgeoned for seeming to oppose
birth control in general.
Planned Parenthood is a powerful organization, and yes, it does provide
abortions, and yes, it does distribute birth control, and yes, Federal money
does go to it. However, Federal money –
by law – cannot be used to fund abortions, and Planned Parenthood made a case
that it was in compliance with that. Anyway, without a lot of proof, you had to
single out Planned Parenthood for cuts specifically to appease the far
right. And what did you gain?
Then there’s your position on gay marriage.
Gay marriage has been going on for years abroad and here, and it’s not a
big deal. But you made it a big deal of
it with stupid legislation like the Defense of Marriage Act – which will be
ruled unconstitutional, as you well knew.
And even though everyone expects that to be overturned for any number of
constitutional reasons, vocal members of the Republican Party keep waving the
bloody shirt – like anyone really cares anymore
Your most radical elements may think promiscuity and homosexuality are
sins. Well here’s a wakeup call – neither
of those “sins” are illegal between consenting adults, and you’re not going to
make them illegal. People are people and
you can’t legislate morality any more than you can enforce the Ten
Commandments.
And speaking of religion, people have the right to believe what they want, or
believe in nothing at all. What anyone
believes is entirely their own business.
Mind your own business before you start minding others’. And
pick your battles better
More to come in future postings …,
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