Where Do You Stand?

Are you a Republican or a democrat?
As we enter the next decade, it’s vital that you think about where you stand and what you are for.

Perhaps we are not in as bad a shape as country or a culture as we were a year ago. But, depending on who you are, where you live and if you still have a job, make no mistake, we still live in trying times. Today our economy is in a fragile state. Has it failed? No. But few are singing “Happy Days are Here Again.”

So who will best lead us out of this? The conservatives or the liberals? The republications or the democrats?

Let’s start with the democrats or as the republicans like to say, “Liberals.” Their philosophy has been that the blue collar worker in our country needs a fair shake. That is why so many of the unions often endorse a democratic candidate. They have been dedicated to making sure that the working class has a fair wage for a fair day’s work. As a voting bloc, democrats seem to represent those who are not at the upper end of the economic spectrum. In a bygone era, it could be said that the democrats wanted higher taxes and more regulation in order to even out inequities between the rich and the poor; the worker and the business owner; the haves and the have nots. They have been portrayed as wild taxers of the wealthy and spenders of tax payer dollars with wild abandon.

The republications or “right wingers” have had a reputation as the party of the wealthy. Often large business owners and entrepreneurs were thought to be republicans. While there are exceptions, if you make a lot of money, you are a republican. Republicans were traditionally for less regulation and the ability to get the most productivity out of the working class and that meant getting the most out of the worker. As a group they were against the unions. Traditionally the republicans were for less regulation, more competition and a market driven economy where the fittest survived. In a bygone era the republicans wanted smaller government, less government interference and lower taxes that in theory would translate into more investment and a stronger economy. Their basic economic philosophy was grounded in a theory that if economic incentives were given to large companies and wealthy business owners, a trickledown effect would take place lifting all, the poor and the middle class as well as themselves into economic prosperity.

But into the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century to the present day something changed. The republicans realizing that the democrats held the executive branch would need the votes from outside their core constituency to reclaim what had been theirs for the better part of the previous two decades. They could not win future elections by simply appealing to the traditional ideology of the Republican Party. They continued to court the socially conservative religious right which began to move toward their party in the early 1980’s. This arrangement meant that the party had to denounce certain moral issues such as the right by women to have an abortion or for couples of the same gender to marry. This arrangement began to erode the traditional conservative philosophy of government interference in the worst way. Not only were republicans now advocating government interference, they were advocating the interference of a human right, and the basic freedoms guaranteed from the very time our country was born and in some examples affirmed by the Supreme Court.

The trickledown theory of economics has always been controversial. It starts by priming the economic pump from the top down. Whether or not the benefits really make it to the working classes is up for debate to this day. But at the turn of the century as the administration changed from democrat to republican and from one of the greatest boom periods to the economy we have today a strange thing happened. As that economic pump was being primed, technology, new laws and a lack of regulation and oversight allowed many of those large companies to send jobs off shore. Rather than allowing success and prosperity to trickle down, large companies sent jobs away. Unlike downturns previously, factories were being moved overseas where labor was plentiful and cheap and workers here were being asked to help pack factories up and close them down. White collar workers somewhat immune to previous downturns due to the skilled nature of their work were being asked to train their replacements that were educated but cheaper to employ in other countries. The profits and re-investment in our industry and our economy were being sent overseas with no apologies from big business. In some cases it has been just the opposite. Some companies which started and flourished in this country proclaimed that they no longer called themselves American companies but rather “global companies” with no national identity. In perhaps the most shameless example, one very a large corporation and defense contractor that received billions of dollars in no bid contracts from the US Government after the invasion of Iraq and whose headquarters was in Texas employing our former vice president as its former CEO has moved its headquarters to the United Arab Emirates.

Factories in manufacturing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Indiana lay idol. The lucky now work for retailers such as Wal Mart with wages far below what they were making just a few years ago and receive little or no benefits. The unlucky have lost everything. The Republican Party, which controlled the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch from 2001 to 2006 did nothing to stop or even slow down this process. In a matter of fact in some cases incentives continue to flow to these companies.

Do you put your country first? Or is it country club first? Somehow if you oppose this winner take all attitude toward our economy and advocate toward a simple living wage you are not a true American. Today’s opposition likes to brand the democrats today as socialists for suggesting that the pendulum has swung too far to the right. We have a record deficit and owe foreign investors and governments hundreds of billions dollars. At the end of the Clinton administration the budget was balanced and there was no deficit. This deficit has been run up by the republicans, the party of less spending. Yet they continue to offer no way to stem the tide of red ink. If we operated our own households this way we would be called wildly irresponsible and would be destined to fail in obscurity. Yet to advocate for a method to pay for this deficit so that our children and grand children are not saddled with this debt makes you a tax and spend liberal.

But are you a patriot? If you oppose a war that was started and fought under false pretenses, has killed over 5,000 and maimed countless others you are unpatriotic. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were started by a republican administration that pledged not to nation build. After the election that administration had advocated that there was no middle ground. “You are either with us or against us.” But make no mistake. The wealthy are not fighting this war. The bottom line is that the republicans would have you believe that it’s unpatriotic to question any decision made in “the country’s best interest.” Do not take lightly newly advocated laws or regulations that restrict your rights under the guise of fighting terrorism. If you give up your rights and freedoms hard fought after 225 years then the terrorists really have won. If you somehow speak out or oppose with fact and logic you are somehow branded an elitist.

Who are the elitists? If celebrities speak out, they are the “Hollywood Elite.” If the media reports they are the “Media Elite.” If the educated speak out they are the “Liberal Elite.” Guess what: Both sides, the left and the right have Ivy League graduates vying for and wanting to run this country. In our most recent national election, on one side there was a candidate who doesn’t know how many houses he owned and whose wife is worth $100 million. On the other side the candidate and his wife graduated from Harvard, the most prestigious school in our country. Our previous president graduated from Yale, an Ivy League school also listed as one of the top colleges in the country. If this sounds like you then you too are among the elite. If you are like the rest of us, then be happy that “elitists” run or want to run our country. Take some comfort that even these smart people can screw things up too and at the end of the day we are pretty much all alike. The fact is that both sides, the left and the right need intelligent, well educated people working for them and us. Running a country is not an exact science. So by accusing a group of being elite really means that you are just trying to distract the rest of us from your own shortcomings.

Don’t be fooled or distracted. We are all lucky to have a constitutionally mandated ability to voice an opinion. Just understand that because you are paid to do so does not make you an expert. You probably just look better on television than most of us do. So just think. We all have the ability to reason. God probably is not interested in a country or a political ideology? After all God has been around a lot longer than America or our system of democracy. But if you do believe in God, or not, you have been given a brain. Use it. Every man woman and child has been born with one. Reason with it. Don’t let someone else make important decisions for you. Make the best choice for what you believe will better this country, your community and your family.