I grew up in a household of Democrats. \u00a0True, my parents were part of the famous \u201cReagan Democrats\u201d who jumped ship in 1980 because of Jimmy Carter\u2019s disastrously inept presidency. \u00a0But they were hardly, contrary to the\u00a0portrait\u00a0painted by Republican pundits today, in lockstep with Reagan. \u00a0Many was the time that my Dad would go off about something\u00a0Reagan\u00a0did. \u00a0They appreciated what he did when they thought it was right, and criticized what he did when they thought he was wrong. \u00a0There were times, youngster that I was, I forgot that they had voted for Reagan, to hear their\u00a0criticisms\u00a0of him.<\/p>\n
The rest of the family, however, held to the party line. \u00a0They liked Reagan personally (back then you could), but would not vote outside of the Democratic party for anything. \u00a0It is that level of\u00a0absolute\u00a0loyalty to something like a party, no matter what, that is one of the things the US Bishops warn against when it comes to voting. \u00a0Thought\u00a0I would throw that in there. So it wasn\u2019t surprising that I tended to lean Left in my political views during college. \u00a0True, I tended to support Reagan in terms of foreign policy, but since I was a liberal agnostic, my sympathies went Democrat more often than not.<\/p>\n
By the time I converted to\u00a0Christianity, I was\u00a0definitely\u00a0more to the center, perhaps right of. \u00a0The issue of abortion had begun to tweak my conscience, and I had watched so many of those grand, lofty dogmas of liberalism begin to be\u00a0deconstructed\u00a0by liberals. \u00a0Pretty soon, I was starting to notice that the most judgmental, the most self-righteous, the most dogmatic, the most intolerant people in the room were those who once paraded under the banner of relative morality and live and let live liberal enlightenment.<\/p>\n
Still, there was enough skepticism in me to keep me from ever jumping on board and waving a flag for the GOP. \u00a0The warmongering Wall Street bombs and bank accounts party is what I had grown up seeing, and I wasn\u2019t ready to sign on. \u00a0When the ethically challenged Bill Clinton was spanked in 1994, I didn\u2019t do much more than laugh at his ghostly performance the day after the election. \u00a0Several I knew in seminary were no more\u00a0convinced,\u00a0 reminding ourselves that to many Republicans, Christianity simply came with baseball and Norman Rockwell. \u00a0If the Church was to be allowed at all, it was as a\u00a0subservient\u00a0partner to the political ambitions of the party.<\/p>\n
Even by the mid-90s, when all faith in the media\u2019s objectivity was dashed on the\u00a0rocks\u00a0of the 96 election\u00a0and\u00a0the Monica\u00a0Lewinsky\u00a0scandal, I was\u00a0hesitant\u00a0to join the\u00a0Republicans\u00a0 even as I watched the Democrats jettison one thing after another that I could use to justify going back to my family\u2019s roots. \u00a0Then I moved to Ohio. \u00a0In 2000, I did not support George W. Bush. \u00a0To me, he was someone who had no business getting\u00a0the\u00a0nomination, but who had used celebrity and wealth to ramrod his way into the party\u2019s top spot. \u00a0I was also not a fan of John McCain, because he, like most idealists, seemed to fail at the basic qualification of being as pure and straight shooting as he insisted he was. \u00a0Because of this, and because I\u00a0dearly\u00a0wanted to see the Clinton era of \u2018lies, not problem\u2019 put to an end, I wished to vote for someone I thought would be a better alternative. \u00a0Since in\u00a0Ohio, you must belong to a party to vote in the primary, I\u00a0begrudgingly\u00a0joined the Republican Party, simply to cast my vote for who I hoped would pull out the nomination.<\/p>\n
Since then, I\u2019ve not been enamored with the Republicans as much as I\u2019ve been aghast at the Democrats. \u00a0I consider the thing called liberalism to be a post-Christian\u00a0revolution\u00a0 \u00a0That is why, IMHO, Christian traditions that attempt to embrace the various ideals of this revolution are doomed to fail. \u00a0You can\u2019t buy kosher ham, you can\u2019t fuse Christianity to a movement which\u00a0believes\u00a0all religion is myths and fairy tales designed to make sense of the universe. \u00a0You just can\u2019t. \u00a0The rotting away of those traditions that try to fuse the two are the proof. \u00a0This, in addition to the Democrats\u00a0increasingly\u00a0tolerating forces that are as hostile to traditional Christian beliefs as central Europe was to Jewish culture in the 20s, seals the deal. <\/p>\n
Still, the Republicans\u00a0scarcely\u00a0have been\u00a0better. \u00a0Despite the obvious results, many still\u00a0believe\u00a0that by making it easier for\u00a0millionaires\u00a0and billionaires to make more money, all will miraculously trickle down to the least of these in our nation. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t take a brain surgeon to look at the graphs and see this isn\u2019t the case. \u00a0Not to mention the Bush administration\u2019s\u00a0embarrassingly\u00a0inept prosecuting of the war against terrorism. \u00a0True, I consider his\u00a0political\u00a0opposition to be just as guilty. \u00a0If I\u2019m to believe we\u2019re willing to slaughter millions for oil, I also have no problem believing the other side of the aisle would gladly trip up our own forces, even to the point of their deaths, in order to score political victory points.<\/p>\n
In addition, you had Bush and the Republicans spending like drunken\u00a0sailors\u00a0 and ignoring the\u00a0warning\u00a0signs of an economy on the brink in just the same way that the Democrats under Clinton had ignored them. \u00a0I don\u2019t blame one party or the other for the economic meltdown. \u00a0Some of it had nothing to do with either party, but both parties have their share of the blame. \u00a0But most troubling has been the GOP tendency to embrace things once seen as being in the domain of the evil society. \u00a0I\u2019m talking torture, I\u2019m talking these drone attacks and the president\u2019s growing ability to assassinate individuals without trial or proof of\u00a0guilt.<\/p>\n
Not that the GOP has done it all. \u00a0Much of this has been pushed under the Obama administration. \u00a0While Obama\u00a0promised\u00a0to change everything, I think most of us realize he has changed nothing at all. \u00a0A weak and ineffectual leader, he has taken the worst of everything he was given and continued it, and the main changes were things that were morally and practically suspect at worse.<\/p>\n
Yet Romney, with all he has to run with, has done\u00a0nothing\u00a0other than suggest he will follow the classic GOP mantra that if we just make it easier for millionaires and billionaires to get more money, all will be well. \u00a0And issues like abortion, embryonic stem cell research, gay marriage, torture techniques, and yes, our Drone War sans due process? \u00a0I don\u2019t know if he even thinks of these things. \u00a0I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0 know if he cares. \u00a0If he\u00a0would\u00a0just make a definitive statement. If he would just stand up and say yes, no, or something. \u00a0If he would be hot or cold. \u00a0But he seems to act as if he can\u2019t be bothered with such things, that he says whatever at any given moment, and his main concern is to structure the economy around those at the top of the ladder. \u00a0That\u2019s it. <\/p>\n