I believe the Republican Party is a Cancer on America

[Bandit]

I have been thinking about how the Republicans divert the blood (money) from vital organs (social programs) and send it to a bloated tumor (Defense) where it just seems to dissappear. The tumor (defense) just gets bigger and bigger while sapping the life force (healthcare, roads, infrastructure,schools,environment,etc.) from America. This "Cancer" has attached itself to a vital organ (national defense) and diverted everything that is healthy into the tumor. It seems to me this is exactly how cancer works. My conclusion is the Republican party is a cancer on America. I wish we could operate and cut it from American politics. I think America is Dying from this cancer and I don't know what we can do.

[demnan]

1. Is there a Doctor in this race?

Yes!

[Bandit]

4. Good comeback ~ LOL There is a Doctor in the house.

:thumbsup:

[kentuck]

2. First, the people must recognize the disease.

thanks for the post, Bandit.

The Repub Party is a Cancer upon our nation.

[Brian Sweat]

3. No, it's more like a boil on the ass of America.

[Droopy]

5. I believe you are correct

What is it with the pukes and defense spending? We've already got the most powerful armed forces in the world, not to mention all the nukes. I would think a conservative would want to maintain the amount for the defense budget, not spend more.

[Atlant]

6. They're paranoid.

> at is it with the pukes and defense spending?

They're paranoid. And that's why no amount of defense
spending is ever enough for them.

Not to mention they often own the defense contractors,
so their paranoia helps line their own pockets with our
tax dollars.

Atlant

[RichM]

10. Democrats are no better at all, as far as defense spending goes. Not

today, not during Clinton's terms, & not since WWII. Both parties are completely complicit in this unspeakable waste of taxpayer money.

The fact that Kucinich is actually calling for (very modest - only 15%) cuts in defense spending sets him apart from other Democrats -- and is at the core of why he is called a "wacko leftist" with no realistic chance at the nomination.

[Blue_Chill]

7. It goes deeper then that.

Greed and self worship is a cancer. It runs inside both parties in different ways. It is in a more obvious form on the right where they seek to save themselves a few tax dollors instead of feeding the poor.

However in case you haven't noticed society as a whole is sliding towards "what's better for me" mindset which is shown in our divorce rates, unwanted children, etc etc.

[maggrwaggr]

8. I think it's more like food poisoning

And this country is gonna take a big explosive DUMP in 2004.

Out with the bad. In with the good.

[salmonhorse]

13. Agreed ~

[denverbill]

9. OK, I don't like this kinda talk.

I'm a regular freeper visitor, and when I see posts over there calling liberals/Democrats names like that, calling for our abolition, calling us traitors, it really sickens me.

There is almost nothing in the conservative agenda that doesn't really gall me, but if we can't beat their ideas with our own ideas, I don't want to win. I'm not for a one-party Democratic state anymore than I am for a one-party Republican state.

Calling Republicanism a 'cancer' is saying it must be destroyed. I just don't buy the argument that the way to beat an ideology you oppose is to destroy it.

[salmonhorse]

12. But db...

While I agree with what you've said here; have you been following 'the election 2000 fiasco thing', out of season Texas gerrymandering, and the recall out here in Cali just for openers?

Put whatever spin you so desire...Republicans are trying every dirty trick they are aware of to in fact destroy the Democratic Party as a force with which to reckon. They want no opposition to their nefarious schemes. Not so very unlike Nazis; they want: One Party Rule. They want it all. And they are not too proud to state it as such ~

[slackmaster]

11. In liew of taking a whack at Bandit's piñata let me ask a question

Would we be better off with single-party rule in the USA?

[Baka no Kami]

14. Correction

Just a quick note. Cancer is when a group of cells begin reproducing themselves at an advanced rate. They don't really divert blood, and they don't 'attach' themselves to a vital organ (they simply grow where they occur). A more fitting term for what you describe is parasite.

[newyawker99]

18. Hi Baka no Kami!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Clete]

15. You are so right.

Everything the GOP stands for is anti-American, corrupt and treasonous. They really should be outlawed. The Bushistas violate the Constitution on an almost daily basis. If this isn't treason and criminal behavior, I don't know what is. They are a growth or parasite that needs to be detached.

[sweetheart]

16. misdiagnosis. "the 2 party system is the cancer"

The natural spectrum of political views is shoehorned in to these 2 parties, and we all talk here like "democrats" when likely if there were multiple parties and proportional representation, likely very few of the people on this site would be democrat.

You must reflect that what makes republicanism so cancerous is the 2 party system that creates opposition divide and rule politics. Whilst i agree the defense establishment is a total waste of taxes, how can we simply give up subsidizing the militarist south when they have perverted the civil war and now have the "north" on tithing. ;-) The only real choice is not-democrat or republican, but just this once, not-republican means democrat. ?? does it?

[opihimoimoi]

17. We are doomed.. The people have been fooled, we are too late

The Cancer has gone airborne.

Only a Democratic Miricle will save our asses.

We must all kneel to the Common Sense God and pray for the solutions


Come, we drink good cognac and smoke Cubans.

[meow2u3]

20. I think we need a 4-party system

And here's how I'd divvy it up (my opinion):

Left-liberals, or down-the line liberals (economic and social liberals) would gravitate towards either the Democratic or Green Parties;
Neoprogressives (center-left--economic liberals, social moderate-conservatives) would either go to the Democratic Party or form their own Neoprogressive party.
Neoliberals (center-right)DLC types--economic conservatives, social liberals) would form a new Reform Party, which Ross Perot did found as a center-right party.
Conservatives, or better put, down-the-line conservatives (fiscal and social conservatives) would remain in the Repuke party, driving moderate, neoliberal Republican to the Reforms.

[recidivist]

19. Nonsense.

The defense budget, from the end of the Korean War into the mid-60's, was about 10% of GNP and over 50% of the federal budget. It is now about 3% of GNP and 20% of the federal budget. Since the end of the Cold War, we have reduced the active duty force by roughly 40%.

(Don't have time to look it up at the moment, so I'm ballparking the figures.)

Yes, defense spending is still a big number, but it's not where the fiscal growth has been. More importantly, it's also not where the future fiscal pressure lies. We're going to have to deal with Social Security and health care sooner or later, and the amounts involved dwarf any conceivable savings we might extract from defense. Yelping about defense spending is simply a short-term evasion of the need to deal with some grim fiscal realities.

The above observations hold whether one favors higher or lower defense spending. On that question, FWIW, the USA now enjoys a degree of military supremacy rarely seen in history. If we manage this properly, this is a very good thing. It will tend to suppress other nations' incentives to arm themselves, China being the principal exception in the world today. It will also tend to hold future conflicts below a -- for lack of a better term -- "U.S. intervention threshold."

To put it bluntly, our dominance at sea, in the air, in intelligence, and in communications capabilities is preemptive in character. Moreover, the costs to construct a competitive military establishment are so prohibitive that most countries today are simply walking away from the project. I suspect even the Chinese will come to their senses on this.

All this doesn't mean the world will suddenly become peaceful, but it does mean conflicts will be forced into the low-intensity end of the spectrum. These kinds of running skirmishes can be frustrating and ugly, as the terrorist entente in the Middle East is demonstrating, but as compared to kind of bloodletting involved in "real" war, they are very small. This is a good thing.


P.S. The closest historical parallel I can think of is the unquestioned supremacy of the Royal Navy for nearly a century after Trafalgar. The practical effect was to suppress naval competition among the other powers for much of the nineteenth century -- until, of course, Germany attempted a breakout in the decade prior to WWI, with tragic results.

[maggrwaggr]

21. 50% of all defense spending worldwide is by the U.S.

is that really necessary? Or a sign of our paranoia?

I don't care about the percentage of GDP, this fact alone shows just how unbalanced it is.

If we "go evil" (which I think we have) who can stop us? The UN? Europe? Nope. There's nobody..

We're turning into Rome.