I used to think that there really was not much of a difference between the two political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. I thought they differed on some things but mostly just listened to different lobbyists. I thought that basically they were all a little bit corrupt with their hands in the cookie jar. Well, their hands may be all in the cookie jar but what they believe in now is very different. I feel there is a distinct difference between the two parties that has grown since Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America”. Maybe the differences were always there but I just didn’t notice them as much until Newt but because I had always voted Republican. I do believe that was one of the major changing points that drove me away from the Republican Party.
A person that I follow on Twitter, George, posted what he believed the Democrats stood for and what the Republicans didn’t. The first thing on George’s list is healthcare. Healthcare does seem to be a one party issue. The Democrats are for affordable healthcare and the Republicans always seem to vote against it. Now what is wrong with people having healthcare? Better put, what is wrong with poor people having healthcare? Canada have nationalized healthcare and they are still a free market country. Most if not all of Europe has nationalize healthcare and they are free market countries. The United States? Nope. We are suppose to be a great Christian nation and to me there is something really immoral with people getting rich off of other people’s suffering. Worse is letting people suffer just because they do not have insurance. Who are the people that suffer the most? The poor of course. The very group that we should be helping. The funny thing is that most of the countries that have nationalized healthcare are actually freer than we are. Don’t take my word for it. Look it up.
The second thing is quality education. Our public educational system is constantly under attack in the United States. For profit education is what I feel the Republican Party wants. To me, I look at it as socialism for private education which favors the more affluent. Every dollar that is taken away from our public schools and given to the private sector just hurts the poor in the this country more and more. Instead of using education to lift people out of poverty it seems like there are people that want to keep them in poverty. They look at the poor and under educated and say that it isn’t their problem. I think as time goes by it will more and more be everyone’s problem. The biggest difference between a developed country and an undeveloped country is education. An uneducated public is also a dangerous public that is easily manipulated by someone like Trump. It is important that we study about the Holocaust and that we study about the evils of slavery. Whitewashing history is dangerous and will lead to history repeating itself.
The third thing is equal justice. We are told that there is no systematic racism in the United States. Who tells us that? Well Tim Scott and the Republican Party, I beg to differ. We have black women that votes by mistake and it truly was a mistake and she is sentenced to 5 years in prison. We have a son of a Governor that was 17 and he not only tried to voted illegally once but he tried to voted illegally twice. I am not saying that I would want that 17 year old to be out in prison for 5 years but the kid did know what he was doing and there should be some sort of punishment. My point is that the black woman should not have been sentenced for 5 years for voting by mistake. She didn’t know she was breaking the law and he did. Where is the equal justice? You have people that stormed the Capitol in an effort to change our election and they just get house arrest for trespassing. I have heard it said that justice is blind well I beg to differ because I believe that justice does see the color of a man’s or woman’s skin.
The fourth thing on his list is affordable housing. I live in Ft. Myers Florida which is experiencing a great deal of growth. With growth you need workers. With workers you need housing. It is a simple concept but one that is really ignored. Democrats talk about affordable housing but Republicans don’t and it is a problem that affects both the employer and the employee. You cannot expect people to live in shacks and work for next to nothing. People need fair wages and affordable housing period. There has to be more planning by both the Local, State and Federal levels to handle the housing crisis in this country.
The fifth thing on his list is clean water. This one should be a no brainer but for some reason it is not. Why? Because it is part of the infrastructure that has been so badly ignored. Issues like what happened in Flint, Michigan should never have happened. There is multiple reason but the argument I always thought was interesting was the one that we couldn’t afford it. Of course you can’t afford anything when you cut taxes. A lot of the deficit that has been created in my opinion was not from spending but from cutting taxes. Trickledown economics was a lie that was sold to the American people and future generations will be stuck paying for that lie.
The sixth thing on his list which was really the first on George’s list is voter suppression. The reason I put is last is because it is the most important thing. Why do you suppress voters? So you can deny healthcare. So you can suppress education. So equal justice will never happen. So there is no affordable housing. So there is no improvement of our infrastructure. You deny groups of people to vote so you can keep them in poverty and then blame them for their poverty. It is all about power. That is why there can be no bipartisanship between the Republican and Democrats. Not that the Democrats vision is so great it is because the Republican’s vision is one that only envisions greed and power. Of course this is just my opinion and I could be wrong.
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