Republicans vs. Democrats: yes, there really is a difference! – Patriot Update

Republicans vs. Democrats: yes, there really is a difference! – Patriot Update

Republicans vs. Democrats: yes, there really is a difference!

Written on Sunday, August 5, 2012 by Nathaniel Davidson

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”—Edmund Burke
In a previous column, Voting RINO: Romney Is Not Obama, I gave many reasons why Governor Romney, for all his faults, is a vast improvement over the Marxist-in-Chief in so many ways.  And regardless of what a Patriot thinks about Romney, right now he is the only alternative to Obama.  Another Obama term would be even worse than the first, and America will be irreversibly damaged.
That is a serious evil that should weigh on the consciences of the “vote my conscience” types insisting on staying at home or voting for anyone else but Romney.  Indeed, I argued last year in Conservatives can win—if they don’t act like liberals, that this attitude was characteristic of liberals.  A major difference between liberals and conservatives is that liberals look only at lofty goals and intentions, while conservatives consider the incentives the policies provide, and the likely results.  We believe that the rightness or wrongness of an act must include the results that will follow.

Repealing Obamacare

And of course, the above isn’t confined to the Presidential election.  If you stay at home, then you also don’t vote on important Senate and House seats.  For example, if we have any chance of repealing the Obamacare monstrosity, Republicans need to hold the House, obtain a majority in the Senate (we are not far away), and get rid of Obama himself. The Supreme Court had its chance, but failed thanks to ‘Benedict’ Roberts.
There are those who point out, with a little justification, it must be admitted, that there is no guarantee that even a Republican takeover will repeal Obamacare. In reply, there is a guarantee that if Democrats hold the White House or maybe the Senate, Obamacare will be entrenched.
And this leads to the main point: in many areas, the Republicans have disappointed by not living up to their values.  But in every one of those areas, the Dems have not disappointed; they have lived up to their perverse leftist values, and guarantee more of the same.  That’s why one of my first Patriot columns was called Why conservatives should hold their nose and vote Republican: A search for a perfect candidate will help elect the worst.

Flawed, but not equally so

One problem with the third party and stay at home types is often a Pharisaic moral superiority complex: both parties are so beneath my lofty standards that there is no point differentiating them.  News flash: everyone has faults.  That’s precisely why our founders built in a system of checks and balances.  They knew only too well that no man or group should be trusted with too much power.  The whole system is built to keep flawed rulers in check.
Another glaring, but usually unstated, fallacy is: “Both parties have faults, therefore they are as bad as each other.”  Of course, this is a non-sequitur: obviously some faults are more serious than others.  But when a rational conservative tries to point out the great evils of Obama and the Dems, the third party types will find some fault in Romney or the GOP, although invariably it’s to a far lesser degree even if it is the same kind.
So let’s list a few reasons why Republicans are better than Democrats:

Obamacare

The people who elected Republicans and Romney will expect them to repeal it, or face voter wrath and Primary challenges. A Republican House and Senate is very likely to vote to repeal.  And of Romney and Obama, who is more likely to veto?
Of course, many will argue that Obamacare is just like Romneycare in Massachusetts.  But this is not serious.  For one thing, an individual mandate is not unconstitutional for States to impose, just for the Federal Government to impose, as the Supreme Court affirmed—that’s why Chief Justice Benedict had to re-write it as a tax not a mandate.  And as fine conservative author and columnist Mona Charen pointed out, “2,700 pages of new regulations; 159 new boards and commissions; and more than $500 billion in new taxes (and counting).”
Also, Romney was trying to rescue a state with an even worse and more indebted health system than the country has as a whole. This was to give Massachusetts citizens the chance to purchase real health insurance, which should be like car insurance, as I’ve explained.  That is: covering the big hospital expenses, not general maintenance analogous to covering tire and oil changes, or procedures analogous to covering new paint jobs. That’s all most people want or need with health insurance.  Romney’s mistake was trusting the Dems—they used this mandate to impose all the unnecessary things that make our current health “insurance” so expensive.

Debt

Obama has presided over record debt.  And this is where the third party types can point to Republican faults.  Certainly Republicans have not been the fiscal conservatives they claim to be, so Obama inherited a debt of $10.626 trillion. President Bush Junior had contributed a lot of that, since he had inherited $5.768 trillion from President Clinton, and added an average of $607 billion a year, or $1.66 billion per day.  This was thanks largely to Democrat-approved programs like Medicaid expansion, No Child Left Behind, and even the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not a record to be proud of, to be sure.
But Obama has added $5 billion of deficit spending per day, over three times more than GWB.  This is a good example of how even where Republicans are bad, Dems are far worse!  And Obama and his Dem allies achieved something that no other president has achieved: downgrading our credit rating, by rejecting Republican proposals to cut spending.

Judges

I’ve already argued that at least Republicans have appointed some outstanding judges such as Scalia, Thomas, and Alito.  They have certainly made some dud appointments as well. But with the Dems, we are guaranteed a far left pseudolegislator like Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.  And don’t forget all the lower court appointments a President can make in his term.

Moral issues

Here again, Republicans have fallen down on the job when it comes to protecting the unborn and marriage.  But the Dems have a national platform of abortion on demand.  Even President Carter begged them to tone down their fanatical pro-abort official position.  This even includes the especially grotesque “partial birth abortion”, and in Obama’s case, infanticide.
On marriage, again some Republicans are not as strong as they should be in protecting this vital institution.  But Obama’s true colors have come out, supporting gay “marriage,” and now the Democratic Party as a whole is poised to become officially pro–gay-“marriage.”

How to improve the Republican party

I hope I’ve provided some of the many reasons why the Republicans are much better than the Democrats.  That’s even if it sometimes seems that the only reason to vote Republican is to stop the Dems.
But the answer to disappointment with the Republicans is not to ruin the country by allowing Dems to win.  Rather, we should follow the American tradition of individualism rather than group-politics, and punish the individuals who let us down. This is what the Tea Party is doing!  They have already helped Rand Paul win Kentucky, got rid of slack Republicans like Charlie Crist (and got the great Marco Rubio) and Richard Lugar (now Richard Mourdock is a fine candidate), and most recently, Ted Cruz has won the nomination in Texas.
It would be good for the Tea Party to challenge “Neville Bayner” (John Boehner), who is too gutless to fight Obamacare and big spending in an effective way.  And RINOs like Lindsey Graham should likewise be shown the door.
This is the way to vent our frustrations on the Republicans who let us down!