The party's over for betrayed Republican (DSM part of reason)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/06/26/ed.col.chaney.0626.html

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.
I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal.

I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste. I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation. I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government. I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican.

My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things.

[madeline_con]

1. "It was a party that ...

... faced facts and dealt with reality,"

Cocaine can really do a number on the brain. Too bad someone so pathetic can actually be put in the WH.

Welcome to DU! :)

[RamboLiberal]

4. This was an article in the paper

I just posted the article. I'm a lifelong Dem and have been in DU for quite awhile. ;)

[madeline_con]

5. I stand corrected.

It was good stuff. :)

[AverageJoe]

2. Great stuff

Very powerful. I can't help believing that there are many more like this fellow out there, heartsick that their party deserted them. This guy has integrity.

[LightningFlash]

3. Great, hope these people stay home for now on.

There is nothing left to save out of that one. It's gone down for the long haul.

[beltanefauve]

6. Still lost,

or confused or plain-old delusional, though. George H.W.Bush followed by the words, "honesty and accountability".

[rodeodance]

7. note how he puts Poppy Bush in the Good Repub Presidents-and lays

it on Jr for what is happening now.

[Paul Dlugokencky]

8. ...and he did not include Ronald Reagan in his list!

http://www.cafepress.com/kickindemocrats

[salin]

9. There is an old saying.... what happens on the coasts

within five years will be vogue in the midwest (i.e., it took time to travel to the mw, and then it took time to overtake the then conventional views in the mw) While I read items like this (yea!) I always look to see from where they are wriiten.

Just this weekend a poster from Nebraska linked the LTTEs - to a one they were pro administration, rebuking critics as antiamerican and harmful to the troops - etc. In other words they were still repeating the Admin/GOP lines. Depressing read.

However, I take heart. What I see is a slow awakening (clearly the author of this letter did't just wake up yesterday and think "My Gosh! I now see what they have done!") - a growing awareness that seems to be pricking more of the public psyche (that is - what grows to be commonly accepted as "truth" within the general public - a public version of "conventional wisdom.")

I hope that the old statement is true - per trends following - though delayed - the coasts. Because this is MUCH more than "I don't like Bush" - this is a rebuke to the whole party and its players -and has a much bigger likely consequence. Think of a Tory party that can not topple an unpopular Blair. Why? Because when the public finally rejected the Tories - they did so in a way that was deeper than a single election. May this be beginning here.

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. Great LTTE - also subject of this other DU thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1890603
Thread title: "As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican."

Good comments in that thread.

[porkrind]

11. Sorry, it's not that easy

Excuse me if I don't welcome him with open arms, but Republican politicians, supported by Republican voters like him have been destroying the country for DECADES. He has a lot to be sorry for.

WTF is this guy thinking when he says: "It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard."

It never was any of those things. I think he is confusing them with LIBERALS.

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Let's be a little bit charitable and a whole lot smart

in how we deal with these things. I remember my own awakening from the somnambulism of Republicanism that happened as a result of seeing Vietnam. The awakening does not happen all at once. It is in some ways like a grief process, the giving up of a cherished set of beliefs. First there is a little crack, and you ignorre it. The crack widens, and you become alarmed, frantically trying to heal it with rationalizations. Then comes the moment when the crack becomes so wide that you can no longer avoid seeing through it, and realizing that you have been in a shell of illusion. But at first you don't know how much of your old worldview was illusion and how much was based in reality. Only with time and courageous, honest questioning of both the old illusions and the new revelations are you able to step into a new worldview. Once the initial crack gets large enough, the change is inevitable, but it is not instantaneous. The process is happening for the writer of this piece. The rest will follow. We need to meet these new hatchlings with friendly encouragement and praise for discovering the world of light, not rebuke for remaining partly in the dark.

[FredStembottom]

14. Thank you, Jack Rad for the way forward

as these poor discouraged people awaken. I work in the Blue-collar world utterly surrounded by Repubs. (although this is changing as we speak:toast:).

And they are still some of the best people in the world. But a propaganda virus was planted in them while WE Dems let too much time go by (I have been actively pushing for progressive/labor talk radio for 25 years).

Welcome each one!

[annabanana]

16. Hi Fredstembottom!

I couldn't agree with you more. You may find yourself able to really contribute to DU, with your feet firmly planted in the Blue collar world. A lot of people here (not most, by the way) have NO IDEA how to "get through" to people who will vote against their own self interest if some flashy "cultural" issue is waved in front of their faces. You'll see comments like "Well, there goes another pension plan down the hole, but at least Steve and Larry can't get married".

Maybe you can help us get the working man back on board with some populist hints.

Oh, and, Welcome to DU! :toast:

[Bread and Circus]

13. About sums it up. I have all the same beefs. I have similar ones

w/ the current dem leadership, because they have become lap dogs for the neo-fascists that currently run our government.

[Jack Rabbit]

15. I really feel sorry for sober conservatives like this fellow

It's a different point of view than mine and most other people here, but it served him as well in making sense of of the world as our point of view has served each of us. It led him to cancel out my vote.

Nevertheless, somebody like Mr. Chaney is somebody with whom a liberal or progressive can discuss issues before an election and learn something, even if in the end no one is persuaded to change his mind.

We're poisoning our planet through gluttony and ignorance.

We're teetering on the brink of self-inflicted insolvency.

We're selfishly and needlessly sacrificing the best of a generation.

And we're lying about it.

While it has compiled this record of failure and deception, the party which I'm leaving today has spent its time, energy and political capital trying to save Terri Schiavo, battling the threat of single-sex unions, fighting medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, manufacturing political crises over presidential nominees, and selling privatized Social Security to an America that isn't buying. We fiddle while Rome burns.

Some of us went through the same pain watching President Carter spin his wheels for four years, never getting the traction he needed to go forward. We who voted for in 1976 so wanted him to succeed, but we knew that wasn't doing it. However, we can still admire Carter the man, even if Carter the president is not about to be put on Mt. Rushmore.

The failure of Bush is different. To us, it may seem like a failure of policy, but it is more than that a failure of character. Bush is a contemptuous, compulsive liar. Worse, he is a spoiled brat so used to having his way that he seems at times to believe that he can make his own reality; he's the head of an empire, after all. Unlike Canute, this emperor doesn't understand why he can't order the tide to go out. As Mr. Chaney points out, global warming is a reality and no corporate-sponsored junk "science" will change that. A real conservative would attempt to tackle the problem in a way that leaves private enterprise in tact; Bush's approach is to deny the obvious because any solution will cut into the profits of favored corporations.

Lenin was right when he said facts are very stubborn things. Having said that, Karl Rove would call me a Bolshevik for citing Lenin, ignoring that facts are still very stubborn things and that the Bush regime can't deal with them.

Artists and writers have the luxury of creating their own reality; statesmen do not. One can share Bush's fundamental ideology and still recognize that his anti-empirical approach to problem solving is a recipe for disaster.

[Algomas]

17. This is the smoking gun...

This letter needs to become an email wildfire. Send it to your entire address book. This is just what every Bushbot needs to read. If they are honest with themselves, they will join us with our torches and pitchforks.