Republican Lies: How do they get away with it?

by ishambat | October 8, 2010 at 04:15 am
346 views | 3 Recommendations | 6 comments

As I continue in my political research to view the standpoints and platforms of Republican candidates, I feel like shouting at them. That I of course cannot do; but I can write what I think about their statements here. This is a set of responses to many of the most common claims that I see.

"We must stop radical judges legislating from the bench" - so then we can roll back the results of the 2000 election, in which the Reagan appointee-stacked Supreme Court upheld corrupt wheeling-and-dealing in Florida in which Bush's brother was governor to steal an election from its legitimate winner.

"Religious freedom is central to America" - if you allow people in America to practice other religions than Abrahamic ones, as well as not to practice religion, that statement might become true.

"Our right to bear arms comes from God" - yes, it was God, and not the Chinese, that invented gunpowder.

"Marriage is a union sanctioned by God between one man and one woman" - then why did the men of God, David and Solomon, have many wives? Why did Abraham have a wife and a concubine? Why do Mormons and Muslims practice polygamy?

"We must protect innocent life from the point of conception" - then stop slaughtering innocent civilians all around the world.

"Our rights and our liberties come from God" - if your rights and liberties came from God, then they would have existed to a greater extent in Medieval Europe, which was a lot more devoutly Christian than America has ever been. English and Spanish monarchies at the time of America's founding were Christian too, and they had no such liberties or rights. Americans' rights and liberties come from European Enlightenment philosophy designed by damn European snob intellectuals like Locke and Voltaire and put into place by damn liberal intellectuals like Jefferson and Franklin, with the help of them damn French who financed American Revolution. Without these damn libruls America would be still an English colony, and Americans would be serving the Queen.

"Government spending is out of control" - that it is, and that it has been since Bush Jr. The government's biggest, most wasteful and most inefficient bureaucracy - the military - takes $800 billion of taxpayer money a year and uses it to buy $600 toilets and throw away perfectly good tools after a week in use. The only person who actually did anything effective about the government and the debt was Bill Clinton, and his hard-earned accomplishment was destroyed by Bush Jr. and Republican Congress.

"Cutting taxes has always led to an economic boom" - it certainly did not the last time it was tried. It worked when Kennedy did it because at that time the taxes were ridiculous; when Reagan did it, it created big economic growth but bigger accumulation of debt; when Bush did it, it was completely unnecessary and irresponsible, and the result was $6 trillion extra debt and no economic growth.

"We must balance the budget" - it is your Reagan and Bush Republicans that threw the budget out of whack in the first place. Reagan started it; Clinton with huge effort and huge loss to his party brought it back into balance; then Bush blew a huge hole in the budget by cutting taxes for the super-wealthy while raising the government budget from $1.8 trillion that it was in 2000 to $2.9 trillion in 2008. All in all, the Reagan and Bush Republicans took federal debt from $1 trillion at the end of the Carter Administration to $11 trillion a the end of the Bush Administration. More of the same borrow-and-spend Republican policies will not fix the problem.

"Reducing the size of the government is the way to fix the economy" - no Republican has ever done that. Only Bill Clinton has done that with any degree of success.

For another counterpoint, why did American economy register its strongest growth under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the most aggressively big-government president in the history of the United States?

"The progressive taxation system punishes success" - paying for the system that protects your property when you're a corporate raider who charges a salary of millions of dollars a month while your company is falling apart is hardly a punishment. Real punishment would see your ass in jail.

"The government is corrupt and invasive" - it became that way under Bush Jr. and Republican Congress. More of the same will not fix the problem.

"Our heritage is Christian" - since white America consists of people who have rejected their European Christian heritage in order to pursue freedom from that heritage in the New World, how dare they force this heritage on the people who are now alive.

"The income tax and other reforms during Progressive Era (early 20th century) are unconstitutional" - America's greatest age was not, as right-wingers claim, 19th century, but 20th century. England was the great 19th century power. America came to the forefront of the world during Progressive Era and remained at the forefront of the world through 20th century, mostly as a result of the reforms that took place during Progressive Era.

"Government and the Democrats are parasitical on America" - It is government science that has made possible most of what business sells and the bulk of American economic output. It is government Interstate and road system that has made possible delivery of goods to the customer by the producer, without which the anti-government truckers would not be able to deliver beef made by anti-government government-subsidized farmers to big liberal cities that are their markets. It is the government Internet that has made possible for business productivity to rise vastly as much as it makes possible for the anti-government right-wingers to distribute their lies. As for the Democrats, not only have they given America its greatest period of peace and prosperity (under Clinton) and its greatest period of wartime prosperity (under Roosevelt), but they gave America:
- The vastly Democratic computer industry that was the engine of 1980s and 1990s prosperity;
- Its greatest military victories (under Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt);
- The bulk of its scientific and technological progress;
- Most of its teachers and journalists who do such thankless tasks as educating America's youth and seeking out corruption;
- The only balanced budget and only successful government reform (under Clinton);
- Vast drop in violent crime (once again, under Clinton);
- The weekend, the humane working conditions, personal freedoms, women's rights, and most of the rights and freedoms that American people have enjoyed since the Progressive Era.

"The way to get energy independence is to build nuclear plants and drill oil" - and make more nuclear waste that can't decompose for thousands of years, and foul up more beaches, and continue poisoning the planet while denying progress in creation and implementation of economically viable high-technology solutions that will actually solve this problem and many others.

"Education should be under local (or parental) control" - since you want to do away with alternative schools, you're obviously lying.

And all this still leaves me wondering, how has it become possible that American Right could lie as much as it does and get away with it?

 

Advertisement
recommend This comment thread is now closed
1
t k kidwai

@Ishambat.There is nothing in your post one can afford to disagree with.Only on point I am in disagreement with you.It is not only Republican liers,no doubt when you write about a republican it is implied that you mean a born liar,but others too get away with their lies.The only difference is that Republican always lie,Democrats seldom.

0
YankeeJim

You know that I am a registered Democrat, yet I am not in lock step.

In my view, many Democrats are elected to Congress as lifer politicians, and I am against being in political office for life.

Many Democrats are able to retain their seats because they espouse party and constituent ideals forever, without a prayer of enacting any productive legislation. Followers vote for what they say, and not what they accomplish.

Shame on voters.

0
ishambat

There are a lot of lesser-party candidates in this election. We'll see if any of them get anywhere.

0
Sputnic

test

0
ishambat

test successful, Sputnic in orbit

0
TiredDem

Republicans AND Democrats are destroying this country.  But, I will venture to play devil's-advocate to your statements.

The 2000 election is not an example of legislating from the bench.  Bench legislation is setting precedent, and thus law, usually based on personal belief rather than common law and often in direct opposition to earlier precedent.  We elect representatives to make law, judges should stick to enforcing them only.

 "Religious freedom is central to America"  It is indeed, and being that the Constitution says that congress shall make no law establishing an official religion or prohibiting the practice of religion; it does indeed allow for the practice of non-abrahamic religions.  Liberals, including many Democrats, have been curtailing the religious freedoms of, mainly, Christians through legal rulings (bench legislation) for a few decades now.  Christian children are not allowed to form prayer groups in schools that allow every other belief and life style to be espoused to have a group.  Christian children have been sent home for wearing a crucifix!

"Our rights and our liberties come from God"  Who said that?  I hadn't heard it.  It is probably a bad paraphrase of the Declaration of Independence, "...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."

"Our right to bear arms comes from God"  See above.

The church is responsible for the move toward monogamous marriage.  In early christian Europe and many parts of the world through history, men and women were bound to each other by declaring vows and nothing more.  The practice of obtaining the "blessings of the Church" led more and more toward church-sanctioned marriage.  So, traditional views of marriage are mostly thanks to the Catholic church.

""We must protect innocent life from the point of conception" - then stop slaughtering innocent civilians all around the world."  It is a democratic Congress and Presidency that is currently killing innocents around the world.

It is hard to prove one way or the other, unemployment rates decreased; that is generally a sign of economic growth. 

Bill Clinton didn't balance the federal budget, the Newt Gingrich led republican Congress did.

The size of the federal government has grown steadily, and likely will continue to do so.  Entitlements account for a much larger percentage of federal expenditures.

""The government is corrupt and invasive" - it became that way under Bush Jr. and Republican Congress. More of the same will not fix the problem."  I agree, except that it has continued to become more corrupt and invasive under Obama and a democratic Congress.  Healthcare reform, invasive; Corrupt:  no one has been punished by the Congressional Ethics Office despite numerous allegations of sexual misconduct, financial impropriety, etc.

Most early European immigrants fled to America to be able to practice their religions freely; they were persecuted for not being of the dominant denomination in their homeland.  Puritans, Quakers, Huguenots, and such; but, mostly Christians. 

Right-wingers claim that the 19th century was the greatest age of America?  Really?  Please cite a quotation, I've not heard this.  And I think that the United States ascendancy resulted more from courage, hard work, amazingly abundant natural resources, and our (diminishing) belief in liberty and freedom than from progressive ideology.

You are honestly going to claim that Democrats are responsible for America's great scientific acheivements and the success of business like on the internet?  The success of those areas are mostly due to entrepreneurial exploitation, which government regulation and take-overs of industries doesn't cause to flourish.  And, much of our science is due to military research, also not favored by Democrats, typically.

Even if the high-tech energy programs of President Obama were fully funded, they would account for only a tiny fraction the US energy demands, I forget the figure but it was less than 1% I believe.  We need to make use of whatever resources are available.

It is the vastly democrat Teachers Unions that are doing away with charter schools and vouchers.  It is usually a conservative that pushes these ideas!

They are probably getting away with it (those in government) because that is what all politicians do.  If they enforced rules about lying, etc they, the Left too, would all be in trouble.  As for the Right, those not in govenment, they're just tired of the government thinking that tax payers should keep handing over more and more of their income and freedoms.  If that is a lie to you, therein lies your inability to comprehend the situation.

This story was created over 3 months ago, the comment thread is now closed.

NowPublic on Facebook

What is NowPublic?

NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.

Find out more

Crowd Power

Anonymous
First Flagged at 7:17 AM, Oct 8, 2010 by Anonymous (not verified)

Related Stories

Recommendations (3)

Most recently recommended by:
 

closeSign in to NowPublic

is reporting from