WHY ARE THE REPUBLICANS INCAPABLE OF TELLING THE TRUTH?
Gary Ater
January 17, 2011
One of my regular readers sent me an e-mail question this week asking the following:
"You are always writing about the conservatives and the GOP always being less than truthful. You have given us many clear examples of their lies, which I have checked out, and yes, they do lie….a lot! What I don´t understand is, Why do they lie so much? What do they expect to achieve by lying to the American public? Do they think that we are never going to find out that what they are telling us is not the truth?" Do they really think we are all that stupid?
This is a fair question, and I will be the first to admit that everything the opposition presents is not all lies. Many of their statements or positions are just differences of opinion between one political philosophy versus another. But I must also admit, there are also a lot of them doing much more than just "bending the truth", or just offering us a "different point-of-view". Many of them are in fact offering, blatant, out-right, bare-assed lies.
Now I can´t answer exactly why they do what they do. But there are some areas that can be explained as to the reason that some of the conservatives take the questionable "less-than-truthful" approaches that they do.
The first thing to understand is that, the basic difference between the Democrats and the conservative Republicans is that traditionally, Democrats have a long history of being a party that actually governs. The reality of their differences are that, Republicans as a group have never really known how to govern. Republicans look at governing more from a corporate dictatorship approach, not as the founding fathers had envisioned of a government that was: of, by and for the people…..ALL of the people. Republicans and conservatives have always believed that there should only be two classes of citizens, the "haves" and the "have not´s", and of course to not have a powerful "middle-class". They also believe the "haves" should always be the ruling party.
In fact, if you look back in history, every time the Republicans and conservatives have been in power for extended periods, they have tended to tear down any previous progress that had been accomplished for the average American. And after all of their governing failures, the Democrats have always had to come in and clean up their mess.
The best period that the Republicans have ever had in trying to govern over the last 100 years was when President Dwight Eisenhower and the Republicans were in power in Congress.
However, on closer examination, it is now well known that the Eisenhower administration and the previous Democratic Truman administration were very similar in how they governed. In addition, there was quite a bit of partisanship between the two parties of that era. (In fact, the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower is sometimes referred to as, "one of America´s most effective ´Democratic´ presidents".) However, before he left office, Eisenhower did warn all Americans to beware of American big business and the Military Industrial Complex. And history has now shown that his warnings were more than just a little bit on point. But, since the era of Ronald Reagan, you would never again hear a Republican make that kind of warning or statement about big business. Because today, big business and big money are the conservatives largest benefactors.
The other reality is that the governing of the average American citizen is diametrically opposed to the basic philosophy of the conservatives and the Republican party.
Just look at the Republicans and the conservative´s score sheet. In the pasts years of power for the Republicans, ask yourself, "What events or successes can they list that were in support of the average American citizen?" Just what do these conservatives have on their list of accomplishments for middle-class Americans?
As an example, if you go back to the era starting with the Great Depression, since that period, the conservatives have virtually voted against every major program that would or could help the average American citizen.
The GOP consistently voted against all of FDR´s jobs programs. For decades, they voted against the 40 hour work-week and against the laws that did away with child labor. They voted against unions being able to form and against the laws that restructured the banks and Wall Street. They voted against all of the Democrat´s US infrastructure building projects of the time and they voted against Social Security and Unemployment Insurance. They even voted against the multiple, early on proposed universal health care programs, (including universal health care proposals from their own presidents´, Theodore Roosevelt and Richard M. Nixon). They have even voted against President Kennedy´s NASA project for going to the moon that eventually generated tens of thousands (perhaps millions) of US jobs.
Think about it! Just what successes do they have in their portfolio for showing Americans to justify their running for political office?
The conservatives crashed the economy in the late 1800´s, then their party was responsible for the 1920´s Market Crash and the 1930´s Great Depression. They were in power during this latest 2008 market crash and Recession and they gave us two unpaid-for wars along with an unpaid-for Medicare Prescription Program with expensive drugs and a built-in "Donut Hole". And now they are trying very hard to take the beginnings of the latest health care program away from the American people.
As further proof, today the top 2% of wealthy Americans hold a larger percentage of America´s wealth than the total bottom 95% of all Americans. The last time that kind of situation occurred was in the twelve months just before the 1929 Wall Street Market Crash.
And today, are the conservatives offering any workable alternative programs for all American citizens? In fact, all of the programs that they do support would increase the federal deficit by billions of dollars, all the while taking away helpful programs for all middle-class Americans. All they are doing today is saying "no" to whatever the other party is trying to do for the average American citizen.
The reality is that all the GOP has to offer today, and all they have to show for their past accomplishments, are negative results, except for what they´ve done for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.
In reality, if the Republicans don´t work on distracting the public with their political "talking points" and "noise", or to just offer flat-out lies, they have nothing to offer the voters regarding past successes or for the future. It is for this reason that the Citizens-United decision was so important to the conservatives. With this conservative US Supreme Court decision, the multi-national corporations and the wealthiest Americans can spend unlimited amounts of anonymous donations promoting their falsehoods and less-than-truthful statements.
So to answer my readers question, all I can say today is that by talking down their competition, telling their tall stories while continuing to confuse the public, that´s all the positive history the Republicans have for selling their side of the political spectrum.
However, what the GOP and the conservatives fail to heed is their first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln´s famous quote; "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
Let´s all just hope that President Lincoln was correct.
Copyright G.Ater 2011
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