The Political Parties

Ann Coulter said the Republicans are the party of peaceful order and the Democrats/Liberals are the party of noisy violent mobs. She also said Republicans follow the American Revolution while Democrats follow the French Revolution; meaning that Republicans have a tendency to make change through argument and doctrine while Democrats use mobs. Mob psychology she said is based on social psychologist Gustave LeBon, the father of group think, used by Hitler and Mussolini to gain insight and control mobs. Ann also said that the Klu Klux Klan were Democrats killing Blacks and Thurgood Marshall criticized Martin Luther King for his street protest as it gave mobs a halo. She said that if a Republican was in office in the sixties that there would not have been a need for a civil rights movement and that all protests do not result in a mob. All of this may have been the way it was but I don’t believe that is true today. I say that a peaceful demonstration is the American way of showing freedom of speech. We should not be hypocrites. Our law enforcement shouldn’t be harming our people if they are not interfering with transportation, splitting or fighting with anyone; see MoveOn.org.

Ann doesn’t tell you that Democrats and Republicans were one party until 1828. Yes Lincoln was a Republican but I believe if he were running today that he’d be a Democrat. In spite of knowing he’d be killed, Lincoln stood for his beliefs. His stand allowed our next president, Andrew Johnson, to abolish slavery and be the first to show a separation between the rich and poor by only pardoning the less wealthy Confederates. Ann doesn’t say that during early Republican rule we had 3 depressions (Grant due to failed banks, Teddy Roosevelt, & Hoover due to a stock market crash) and 3 charges of corruption (Grant, Harding, & Nixon). Republicans from Lincoln to Eisenhower created a lot of the bureaucracy as they knew businesses needed to be watched. And Republicans used to prosecute their own (Coolidge prosecuted Harding’s corrupt administration). From what I see, the Republican Party appeared to show a change in direction when Ford pardoned Nixon for the Watergate scandals. I find Ann’s statements interesting as it seems to me that the Republicans now support the minority with the money and the Democrats are the ones concerned with the masses. And, now it’s the Democrats, not the Republicans, that say to stimulate the economy, invest in infrastructure projects, put more money into education and research projects and raise taxes on the rich. I’ve noticed that since John Kennedy that when a Republican is in office and people think things are going bad – they vote for a Democrat and vice versa.

Republicans used to support the Constitution (Grant gave black men the right to vote with the 15^th Amendment and signed the first Civil Rights Act in 1875). A recent survey showed 20% of Republicans say they won’t vote for a Mormon for president, thus showing their prejudice along with their stand against Gay marriages/unions.

People have to get away from party affiliations. We’re acting like we’re voting for Prom King and Queen instead of our legislators. Vote according to the issues, not what or who is popular. Listen with your ears, not your anger, and read between the lines so you’re not swayed by the media. I recently heard Bill O’Reilly say that he doesn’t want to talk about party affiliations; he wants someone like Lincoln who put the country first. He also said that regular folks, those not in politics, couldn’t do any worse. I really agree with him because I believe the best and brightest got us into this recession. So I say we look for the sensitive and average instead (obviously this doesn’t include Herman Cain).

I heard Bill Weir say that arguments are the heartbeat of democracy and not since the Civil War have we had more to argue about. I believe in having these arguments we have to remember that truth brings enemies and cannot set free the dishonorable. And, people of character do the right thing, not because they think it will change the world but because they refuse to be changed by the world. As such, I believe that both the Democratic and Republican parties are not in touch with or are afraid of doing what is best for the majority of the people (recently I heard only 20% of us felt this way). Because most politicians have special interests that help get them elected, in my opinion if we got away from the money it costs to run for a government position then we could find people who would do what’s best for the country instead of their party. I urge everyone to stay away from primary elections in order to take a stand and show politicians how dissatisfied they really are. I hope such a stand will make Congress change the way campaigns are run.