Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 11:59 am
Every creature on this planet has a purpose in life whether it is an animal that exists to procreate, or a human who studies to learn how to build bridges, and regardless the end to be attained, it takes ardent dedication to that purpose to find a measure of success. Unlike animals, humans are able to devote themselves to a cause, or an ideology, and history is replete with catastrophic results of ideological devotion. Any strict ideology is dangerous because it is usually entails some form of oppression, and it is nearly always the case that regardless their numbers, an ideological group with power and influence will abuse the masses mercilessly. The conservative movement is devoted to the ideology that government exists to benefit the rich and corporations, and that their primary job is robbing the people of their assets; it has been their purpose for seventy-five years.
Conservatives’ are hardly concealing their intent to protect the wealthy any longer, and voters plainly rejected them in the election last month. Regardless, Republicans have held firm to their stated goal of never raising tax rates on the richest 2% of income earners in what has been a two-year crusade they will stick to even if it means taking the economy over the fiscal cliff. The Republican counter offer to President Obama’s balanced proposal to avoid sequestration cuts maintained Bush-era tax rates for the rich and proposed $1.4 trillion in various cuts that affect the poor, middle class, and the elderly. Nonetheless, hardline conservatives assailed Boehner’s proposal for closing tax loopholes and not being made up of spending cuts exclusively.
Republican’s persistence of eternal tax breaks and preferential treatment to a tiny percentage of the population is absolute, but what really drives them to excitement is robbing the people of their assets; a goal from which they have never wavered. In their never-ending quest to eliminate the government, a conservative tactic is attacking successful and popular programs with a view toward bankrupting, and eventually eliminating them. Republicans’ greatest enemy is not Democrats or liberals, but any successful government program that eviscerates their argument that government is bad and worth shrinking, if not entirely eliminating. Two of the most successful programs in America’s history is Social Security and Medicare because they are funded by every American who works which is why Republicans are hell-bent on robbing and bankrupting them.
Every American who has ever held a job funds Medicare and Social Security with their payroll taxes, and yet the GOP refrain is they are entitlements that must be reined in to save the economy and reduce the deficit. Republicans have spent no small amount of time attempting to convince Americans that if the people do not allow Republicans to steal their retirement and healthcare accounts they paid into throughout their working lives, then all is lost and the nation will collapse under the crushing debt brought on by Social Security and Medicare. What has been the bane to Republicans is that the people will not comport politicians stealing their assets, and both Social Security and Medicare are assets that belong to the people.
Republicans cannot understand that the American people are compassionate toward their fellow citizens and approve, by a large margin, of using money from their retirement and healthcare pool to care for the least fortunate among us. In fact, during the campaign, 87% of Americans believed helping the poor should be a top or important priority of government, and President Obama’s re-election bears out that statistic. They also believe by a 72% to 28% margin that millionaires paying a lower tax rate than their employees is a much bigger problem than 47% of Americans who do not pay federal income taxes. Republicans however, oppose helping the poor and in fact, spent all of 2011 and 2012 attempting to steal their assets despite just having secured a two year extension on Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. In a deal at the end of 2010, President Obama extended the Bush cuts in order to extend unemployment benefits and a payroll tax holiday for working Americans. Republicans responded during the 112th Congress with a budget, the Path to Prosperity, which cut taxes on the wealthy, privatized Medicare, and contained Draconian spending cuts that affect 98% of the American people. Although for the next year-and-a-half and up to the election the people rejected more gifts to the rich and cuts to their assets, but the GOP is holding firm to tax cuts for the rich, eliminating middle class tax exemptions, and Draconian cuts to social programs.
One wonders why Republicans are adhering to an agenda they know is a recipe for economic failure and why their solution to every economic problem entails tax cuts for the rich and robbing Americans of their assets, and the only reasonable conclusion is their decades-old ideology of handing the people’s assets to the rich coupled with their not-so-subtle shift toward libertarianism. The Republicans’ agenda is the Koch brothers, Heritage Foundation agenda of transforming America, and the government, into a corporatist ruled nation allowing Wall Street, corporate banking interests, and the insurance industry free reign to take every last bit of wealth from the 98% and hand it over to wealthy bankers and industrialists. If Republicans can cut Social Security and Medicare into insolvency, Americans will scramble to make up their losses as Wall Street and insurance industry customers. The GOP’s intent has been privatizing the government for years, and underfunding successful and popular programs is the logical step towards handing control of those programs over to Republican campaign donors while the people struggle to survive.
Conservatives and their legislative arm, the Republican Party, have no intention of backing down from their ideology of greed and hate, and it will lead to either an economic collapse which plays into the hands of the wealthiest Americans, or a nation of struggling peasants who lost everything to a sick and evil ideology. The tragedy is that Republicans are more than willing to see America suffer a deep recession, fall into total disrepair, and experience massive unemployment as long as they achieve their ultimate goal of stealing everything from 98% of the population and giving it to the rich.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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