Americans or Party Members? Emerson W. - 5/16/2004 8:12 AM Perhaps it’s just me but it seems that more and more often people are more concerned with how well their political party does in elections and less interested in what might actually be good for the country or the state in which their candidates are running. It seems that rather than following their own set of ideals and beliefs of how the country should work, and what the right path is for our society to take into the future, they are simply doing and saying whatever it is their political leaders have to say. For instance When Bill Clinton announced his plans to reform social security introducing ideas like only getting benefits if you are getting some kind of job training (for some) or drastically shortening the length of time people can be on welfare democrats who had balked derided and degraded such ideas when even thought by the evil republicans cheered, hooted, and hollered as if it was a goal they had all been working for. Instead of standing by the same ideals they had been pushing for decades they turned 180 degrees because Clinton told them it would be a good idea. It could easily be argued that substantively Clinton became the most “Republican” of Democrats since Grover Cleveland after the Republican Party took control of the House and Senate. He began to regularly bash big government (and left with an average 2.4% growth in discretionary spending which is miniscule in comparison with the 8-11% yearly growth rate in discretionary spending by the Bush administration). He was positively obsessed with decreasing deficit spending, He backed and eventually signed the most anti-Union legislation (GATT and NAFTA) written in decades, he signed legislation banning abortions at military hospitals overseas, as well as barring abortion procedures from federal employees health plans. Clinton ran on a platform criticizing Republicans for daring to want to cut Medicare, and then he turned around and proposed cuts in excess of $124 Billion. Clinton endorsed v-chips in televisions, school uniforms, and nightly curfews for kids, and all the while few democrats howled or screamed as Clinton co-opted huge chunks of the Republican platform, instead they raised Clinton to the level of political demi-god. This is of course not to say that Democrats are the only party members who regularly and routinely flip their political beliefs because their leaders tell them to do so. Much can be said about the Republican Party as well for doing the exact same things. The Republican party has long used “big government” as a massive beating post for their beliefs dealing with socialist fiscal policy and unnecessary government intrusion into citizens lives. However when George W. Bush went on a spending spree not experienced in this country since the second World War few Republicans batted an eye. Could these be the same people who harangued Clinton for being a “spend-o-holic”? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Federal aid money for terrorist attacks, and the Federal money for better preparations in the case of another completely withstanding Bush is currently spending up to 5 times more money every year on discretionary items than Clinton did. Can you remember back in the 90’s when Republicans wanted to reduce spending on Medicare? Or can you only remember the Republicans cheering when Bush pushed through his republican controlled senate and house the largest entitlement increase since Medicare’s inception? Republicans have always (or at least for the better part of 80 years) been the ones that call for more national security. After 9/11 those words were taken up by everyone from the President himself to the lowliest janitor at the pentagon. And some things were greatly changed in the way that America deals with security. The Airports are certainly far more secure, perhaps not perfect, but certainly a lot better than before for instance. However what has been done about actually stopping terrorists from coming to the United States and carrying out an attack not dealing with airplanes? Where are the massive numbers of guards on our borders and where are the thousands of new immigration agents finding and rounding up illegal immigrants, and double checking the whereabouts and backgrounds of legal immigrants? Many of the 9/11 hijackers were here legally but their visas had run out, or were not going to the schools they were supposed to be attending while being here. And more germane to the subject: where are the Republicans screaming for true national security? Invading Afghanistan and Iraq can be debated all day long I suppose, but should we assume that doing that and increasing airport security will somehow solve the problem and that no one else will try to attack us? For less than 1/3 of the total cost of the war in Iraq we could have a comprehensive border guard system making sure that terrorists aren’t simply allowed to walk across our borders, for half the cost we could also set up a much larger more dynamic immigration/homeland security group to track legal immigrants and find illegal ones. Why do the Republican party members not raise these issues? Why don’t they force their party to stand up for the things they’ve always said we needed now that they have the chance to truly push through some of these changes? And Why are they clapping when Republicans push through bills that could more easily be ascribed to the free wheeling massive spending of the evil Democratic Party? Because they are not Americans any longer. The same holds true for many Democrats. They are no Longer citizens of the United States of America. I am not speaking of their legal status, but of their state of mind. They no longer think of what they really believe will help the country first and foremost, they think of what will help their party gain more power, even if it is completely ignoring the values that the party supposedly stands for. They are Republicans and Democrats….no longer Americans