Bankrupt of principles, Republicans now turning on each other

What is going on in recent days with the Republican Party and its adherents who still proclaim to be "conservative" reminds me terribly of the events of John Carpenter's The Thing. The men of Antarctic base Outpost 31 in that movie grow increasingly paranoid, even violent toward each other. As Wilford Brimley's character tells MacReady (Kurt Russell) at one point: "I don't know who to trust."

I don't think the Republicans have been infiltrated by aliens just yet (as happens in another John Carpenter movie, They Live) but ever since this past weekend's annual Conservative Political Action Conference you would think that the party is divvying up and preparing to go at it with flamethrowers and fire axes. But I think that the "mainstream press" (now more worthless than ever) is missing the real story here. This power struggle among so-called "conservatives" is only happening because the Republicans are so utterly void of foundational principles, that it now stands revealed - and just as much as the Democrats - as being only concerned with the acquisition and maintaining of political power. For all the cooing of how "wonderful" Rush Limbaugh's speech was about getting Republicans back in control of the White House and Congress, nobody among these people are daring to ask themselves "Do we deserve to be in power?"

I propose that the Republicans/conservatives' failure to address this with the humility it deserves, cries out that they don't deserve any more power. They had eight years to do as they pleased, and they did absolutely nothing substantive with it. Why should we trust them with more opportunity and authority? How can we respect them when the only thing they accomplished the last time was radically increasing the size of government and wasting a countless amount of our money?

The sooner we accept this truth, the sooner this country can begin on the road to real recovery: neither of the two major political parties has America's best interest at heart. There is no faith to be had whatsoever in either the Democrats or the Republicans. Together, these two "factions" are driving this nation full-bore toward the cliff. I can't see how arguing about who's at the steering wheel is going to make any real difference.

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New Republican head Steele: GOP should embrace pro-choice views, "gay marriage"

The only reason I'm really posting this is to illustrate something that I and many others have screamed ourselves hoarse about during the past several years: that there is no damned difference at all between the Republican and the Democrat parties in the United States.

In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, new Republican National Committee chairman Micheal Steele said that it was "important" for the Republican Party to "reach out" and embrace candidates who are pro-abortion and pro-"gay marriage".

(Incidentally, I have my own thoughts about that and I might articulate them someday in the near future, suffice it to say it's a perspective that's neither "conservative" or "liberal"... and a lot of my fellow Christians might find it a bit surprising.)

I think that this elicits a lot of questions. Obviously, how is what Steele suggesting for his own party, any different at all from the Democrat party? Why should anyone who is, say, very much pro-life believe that his or her stance is going to be represented by the Republican Party anymore, if it is willing to compromise itself on this issue? How does this demonstrate that the Republicans are out for anything other than political capital?

And I for one would like to pose a question to certain "conservative Christians" who I know are reading this blog (yeah I'm looking at you Ron Baity, Jeff Baity and the others from Berean Baptist in Winston-Salem): how in the world, in light of this, do you still maintain that you have to owe loyalty to the Republican Party, when it clearly no longer cares at all about you and other "evangelicals" or what values you hold to?

Maybe the United States owes the old Soviet Union an apology. At least communist Russia was honest about being run by a single political party. In America, most rubes are convinced that there are two parties and that somehow, they're "making a difference" by belonging to one or the other.

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