Absolute disgust

For 20 years, since the day I heard President Reagan give the Evil Empire speech in Oralndo, I have been a Republican. I gave money to the party. In philosophy classrooms I argued Locke against any professors Rousseau or Mills. I helped raise money for the Contras. I enlisted in the Army to help win the war against the communists. At cocktail parties I quoted Von Mises and Hayek in opposition to Keynes and Marx. I always believed that the Republicans were the party of Life; that a Republican President and a Republican Congress would be the end of legalized abortion in America. I always believed that the Republicans were the party of ancient Virtue; that Cato and Cincinatus would be most comfortable in the GOP. I thought balanced budgets were what the Republicans wanted. I thought Morality and Decency were what the party was trying to bring to America. I was wrong.

For almost 4 years Republicans have controlled both of the political branches of the Federal Government. This is what it has got us:

1. The national debt is greater than ever.
2. Abortion is still a legal even though, ss every eigth-grader knows, the Congress has the power to remove abortion cases from the Court's jurisdiction and override Roe v. Wade. Yet we have had a republican Congress for several years and the abortion rate is higher today than it was four years ago.
3. The Republican governor of California is trying to get the voters to approve state funding of embryonic stem cell research.
4. The Republican Congress passed a huge prescription drug benefit law (signed by the President) that robs collective Peter to medicate individual Paul.
5. Every pork barrel project known to man has been written into the federal budget.
6. We still have a graduated income tax.
7. We still have inheritance taxes.

And now the President has changed his mind on homosexual marriage.

I am through with the Republican Party. I've given them my vote in every election at every level of government since I attained of the age of majority. But no more. If Bush wins California it won't be because of my vote. I'm voting for either Peroutka or Badnarik. (I don't know which one yet.)
But as Matthew of Oregon reminds us, St Ignatius of Harbin (Aug. 3) said, "What began in Russia will end in America." So maybe, for whom I vote doesn't matter a hill of beans; The King is coming, and the time of our stewardship is drawing to a close.