James Chaney quits the Republican Party - his letter

[superconnected]

"June 26, 2005
Guest Viewpoint: The party's over for betrayed Republican
By James Chaney


As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.

I take this step with deep regret, and with a deep sense of betrayal.

I still believe in the vast power of markets to inspire ideas, motivate solutions and eliminate waste. I still believe in international vigilance and a strong defense, because this world will always be home to people who will avidly seek to take or destroy what we have built as a nation. I still believe in the protection of individuals and businesses from the influence and expense of an over-involved government. I still believe in the hand-in-hand concepts of separation of church and state and absolute freedom to worship, in the rights of the states to govern themselves without undo federal interference, and in the host of other things that defined me as a Republican.

My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things.

Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation's future on three core issues: how we led the world on the environment, how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn't go bankrupt, and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world's stage as its only superpower. Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts. And we've done it in such a way that we shouldn't be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again.

My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming. We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we've chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.

We have mortgaged the country's fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we've simply changed the rules. I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do. But the party has yet to explain to me why it's a good thing now, other than to say "... because we say so."

Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower. This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.

Republican decisions made in 2002 and 2003 have killed almost 2,000 of the most capable patriots our country has to offer - volunteers, every one. Support for those decisions was gathered through what appeared at the time to be spin and marketing, but which now turns out to have been deliberate planning and falsehood. The Blair government's internal documentation only confirms what has been suspected for years: Americans are dying every day for Republican lies first crafted in 2002, expanded and embellished upon in 2003, and which continue to this day. This calculated deception is now burned into the legacy of the party, every bit as much as Reagan's triumph in the Cold War, or Nixon's disgrace over Watergate.

I could go on and on - about how we have compromised our international integrity by sanctioning torture, about how we are systematically dismantling the civil liberties that it took us two centuries to define and preserve, and about how we have substituted bullying, brinksmanship and "staying on message" for real political discourse - but those three issues are enough.

We're poisoning our planet through gluttony and ignorance.

We're teetering on the brink of self-inflicted insolvency.

We're selfishly and needlessly sacrificing the best of a generation.

And we're lying about it.

While it has compiled this record of failure and deception, the party which I'm leaving today has spent its time, energy and political capital trying to save Terri Schiavo, battling the threat of single-sex unions, fighting medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, manufacturing political crises over presidential nominees, and selling privatized Social Security to an America that isn't buying. We fiddle while Rome burns.

Enough is enough. I quit.

James Chaney is a Eugene attorney who has been in private practice for more than 20 years, and who has been a registered Republican since 1980.
"



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Found today on Andrew Tobias' Website at www.andrewtobias.com

[Ganja Ninja]

1. That loud "POP" sound you hear is the sound ...

of heads finally coming out of asses all across America.

[Esra Star]

9. The sound of a steam roller across bubble=wrap

[fasttense]

2. How eloquent, love, love it, love it. n/t

[Supersedeas]

21. Yep, very well written!!!

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. No matter how hard he or any other Republican tries to purify the

right-wing party, the reality is that it will only be a Democrat that the world will take seriously. If Republicans want to see America returned to its greatness, it is at this time they need to step back and support the best Democrat possible in the next presidential election. And I don't mean a Democratic president that will take on Bush's mistakes and extend them just to save Bush some embarrassment. He made the mistakes, so let him and his supporters take the heat. America needs to forge a totally different path. The further we distance ourselves from Bush policies, the better it will be for the country and our children.

[cyberpj]

4. Thank you for posting this. Nominated. nt.

[rogue_bandit]

5. WoW

Get that man elected~!

[KnaveRupe]

6. Don't expect this to convince any Freeper-types...

Here's the line that they will focus on to avoid having to face the truths within the rest of the article...

"My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush."

Notice any recent Republican demigod missing from that list? By leaving St. Ronald off the list and putting Bush I (the man who lied about "no new taxes") on the list, his Conservative street cred is already shot to hell in the eyes of the people most in need of hearing his message.

Sadly.

[MsUnderstood]

15. wow that is such a coincidence

Because when he put a Bush on that list I thought "the poor man is still delusional. . . "

And I notice that he may have quit republicans, but does that mean he is now homeless or is he joining he democrats to fight against this party without control.

Bravo for him standing up and saying SOMETHING!

[kcwayne]

7. Kind of odd that he mentions HW Bush, but not Reagan

when he is holding up "model" Republicans, especially since he first registered as a Repuke at the beginning of the Reagan era.

[progressoid]

11. Perhaps because GHWB came to understand that he couldn't continue

Reagan's deficit spending. He states that he is opposed to fiscal irresponsibility. Looks like he's sensible enough to see that Reagan was the poster child for fiscal irresponsibility.

[bribri16]

8. I hope I won't be breaking any rules but I have got to print this into

a "Handbill" and distribute it at the upscale markets in my area today.

[JohnnyBoots]

16. Good idea, would be nice to get

in every Op-Ed page in the country, especially the rightwing rags.

[calimary]

18. Good idea! And Welcome to DU!

We certainly can use your help, your energy, and your brain!

[leesa]

10. He thought George H W Bush was decent? Helllooooo!! Glad he woke

up somewhat, but obviously he has no problem with criminals.

[wicket]

12. linky here:

The party's over for betrayed Republican

[central scrutinizer]

13. Dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3954801&mesg_id=3954801

[Roland99]

14. We need some higher ups to switch and become more vocally critical

[tk2kewl]

17. I'm happy to see that his party wan not the party of Ronny Raygun

[calimary]

19. It's nice to see this is being picked up.

I saw it posted earlier, from a paper in Eugene, Oregon. The more people see stuff like this, the better!

Kicked and nominated!

[Peace Patriot]

20. Our country is being run not only by a minority party, but by a minority

group within that minority party.

How did that happen? By a number of fascist means, including corporate news monopolies that promulgate the "Big Lie," but most importantly--because it is so fundamental and because it is imminently fixable--by Bushite control of the vote count with secret, proprietary programming code.

This outrageous FACT--that the major Bush donors and supporters who own and run electronic voting companies--CONTROL THE COUNTING OF OUR VOTES IN SECRET should be shouted from the rooftops. Our elections are INVALID because of it. And I am very convinced that the Bush Cartel not only stole this last election from Democrats who voted for Kerry but also from Republicans who voted for Kerry (the easiest votes to steal electronically--with the least risk of detection).

The Democrats blew the Bushites away on new voter registration in 2004, nearly 60/40. Why were all those people FLOCKING to the Democratic Party?

The new voters voted overwhelmingly for Kerry. So did the Independents. So did the Nader voters. So did the Gore 2000 voters.

So who's left?

Karl Rove claims they had an "invisible" get out the vote campaign. Right. That's what he and our corporate overlords would like us to believe. It's hogwash--like everything else that comes out his mouth.

But you really only have to look at Bush's approval ratings over the last year to know that he didn't win the election.

So this is what I wish Republicans like James Chaney would do: Demand transparent elections with the election system in the PUBLIC VENUE.

Unfortunately, corporate "privatization" of our common democratic institutions and resources has been a pet project of the Republican Party for some time now.

And now it has been extended to our very ELECTIONS. Patriotic Republicans need to say: Enough! There is a proper place for government, for public ownership for the public good, and for open and transparent institutions NOT CONTROLLED BY CORPORATIONS. And they need to fight back with us against these Bushite-owned electronic voting monopolies, and get them out of our PUBLIC business.