Democrats Are No Better Than Republicans

Spend a little time exposing the various misdeeds of the Bush administration and you will find the Democratic side of the aisle jumping up and down and waving their arms like school children screaming for attention and crying “let us in and we’ll fix all the problems of this country.”

Such claims, of course, are bullshit because Democrats, like Republicans, devote all their time and energy to serving their own political agendas, not the country they have sworn to serve. Anyone who thinks yanking Republicans out of the White House and Congress and replacing them with Democrats will fix this country’s woes is a fool and a fool and his country are soon parted.

The problem is not the perceived, and inaccurate, superiority of one political party or philosophy over another. It is, instead, the system that all political parties share and support. The problem is politics: left, right, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Whig, Progressive or Socialist.

Any partisan who puts consideration of party politics above the best interests of the country is selling out America. No party represents the best interests of America because all parties represent the special interests that dole out the big political action committee bucks.

Think things would be any better if Al Gore had won the election in 2000? Don’t bet on it. Osama and his thugs would still have struck on 2001 because the conditions that led to the attack festered while his boss, Bill Clinton, occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Given Gore’s history of indecisive action, he probably would have hesitated to strike back at bin Laden in Afghanistan and the country might still be under the absolute control of the Taliban. On the other hand, I doubt he would have found an excuse to invade Iraq so we might have been spared that disaster but we would have had other problems. Gore wasn’t a leader.

Could John Kerry have saved the day if he had won in 2004? Nope. He changed his position on Iraq so many times he probably would still be considering his options and America would be right where it is now - stuck in a no-win war while Americans die.

George W. Bush is a lousy President. So was Bill Clinton. Both lied to the American people. Both abused the power of the Presidency. Both played the political game of personal destruction of their enemies. Both represent the latest in a long line of bad to mediocre Presidents whose damage to our freedoms and this country will be felt for years to come.

Bush sold out his country to Saudi business interests. Clinton sold out to China. Neither deserved to be President. Neither put America ahead of their own political lust for power. Both evaded military service. Clinton used and abused student deferments. Bush used and abused a system that allowed favored sons of the rich and powerful to get into the National Guard.

Clinton partisans claim his lies don’t measure up to Bush’s because the war in Iraq cost American lives. I wouldn’t try that argument on the relatives of soldiers who died in Bosnia or on some of the other "peacekeeping" actions launched during the Clinton years.

Republicans bitch and moan today about how Democrats stall Bush’s judicial appointments. Yet they did the same thing to Clinton’s attempts to appoint federal judges. The Republican leadership tried earlier this year to limit filibusters to stop Democratic efforts to not only delay judicial appointments but stall other legislative agendas. When the Democrats controlled the Senate, Republicans used the filibuster to do the same thing.

When Democrats controlled Congress, they received the bulk of political action committee money from business because they controlled the committees. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell went on the floor of the Senate and called for the outright elimination of PACs and opposed the Democratic position that PACs were protected by freedom of speech.

When Republicans took control of both houses of Congress and the PAC money started going to the GOP chairmen of committees, McConnell became the champion of PACs and told business that he would “do everything in my power to protect your right of free speech in the political process.” Of course now the Democrats want to eliminate business PACs just as long as the unions that overwhelmingly support their party are protected.

Replacing a gang of Republican crooks in Congress and the White House with an equally-corrupt band of Democratic crooks solves nothing. Selfish interests drive both political parties and the problem cannot be solved unless the system they both serve is eliminated and replaced with something that transcends politics.

How? Good question. In 1988, I joined a group of other concerned citizens in Washington to create the Project for Comprehensive Campaign Reform. We drafted proposed legislation to eliminate big money from the political process and proposed other sweeping reforms in testimony to both the House and Senate. But our efforts went nowhere because the people who benefit most from the current, corrupt system are the only ones who can vote to change it.

We continue to work to find a solution. Will we succeed? I don’t know. I do know that the current system is a failure and those who support it don’t care one goddamned bit about what is best for America. But we have to find a way to fix it before it’s too late.

It may be too late now. We can only hope that it is not.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7111.shtml

The despotism of the two party system - excerpt of The Farewell Address of
President George Washington

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."

"Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution, in those intrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the Guardian of the Public Weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way, which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield."

"Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."

(ie:FREE INDEPENDENT PRESS)

MORE:
http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/washbye.html

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/1439853.html