By GottaLaff
But first, a personal note from 42bkdodgr:
Many of you may wonder why I chose to use the “ 72 year old friend” as the introduction to my Special Comments. I selected the moniker so readers could see that from my age and life experiences I give a different perspective to the issues of today.Now for his Special Comment:
Many thanks again for another timely, thoughtful piece, 42bkdodgr. You never fail to say what so many of us are thinking and feeling.Tolerance
In the last couple of month three events have taken place, which for me shows where the Republican Party is heading.
The first event is the New York State 23rd Congressional District election. The local Republican leadership chose Dede Scozzafava as their candidate, whose selection was endorsed by the Republican leadership in Congress and by National Republican Congressional Committee.
Dissatisfied with Ms. Scozzafava positions on abortion, same-sex marriage and taxation; the Conservative wing of the Republican Party led by Sarah Palin and Dick Armey decided to put up their own candidate to defeat the Republican candidate.
We all know how that turned out, the election of Democratic candidate Bill Owens, the first Democrat to hold that District’s seat in over 100 years.
The second event took place on Nov.7th during the voting on the HCR Bill. With all Republicans indicating they would all vote NO on the bill, I wondered if there was at least one representative who knew his constituents were in favor of having a health care reform bill passed.
Well I wasn’t disappointed, a courageous individual, Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-New Orleans), listening to the needs of his constituents, who were concerned about the rising costs of health care premiums, voted for the HCR Bill with a public option.
Rep Cao did what he was elected to do, represent interests of his constituents and not just support party ideology. I believe there where others who felt the same way but were afraid to go against their party leadership and the conservative wing of the party.
For actually representing the wishes of his constituents, Rep Cao received a lot of hateful words from the right wing of the party. He received such hateful remarks as “The face of an American traitor”, “I will go broke supporting a dog to run against this traitor”, “Go back to Saigon, Vietnam, where you f_ _ _ing belong G_ _K”. Some people even asked that their donations be returned.
The third event involves Sen. Lindsey Graham (R - SC). The Charleston County, S.C., Republican Party censured Sen. Graham for his work with Democrats and GOP moderates. They were upset that Sen. Graham worked with Sen. John Kerry ( D-Mass.) and Joseph Liberman (I-Conn.) on climate change legislation and for also working on a bipartisan basis with members of the Democratic party on immigration reform.
Now what do these three events have in common? Its that the Conservative wing (tea baggers/ Tea Party) of the Republican Party has little or no tolerance for those with different point of views.
The Conservative wing of the Party has indicated they will endorse those Republican candidates in the 2010 primaries who support their ideology (abortions, gay marriage, taxation) or they will select a candidate to oppose them.
When you take into account these three events along with the actions, dress, signs and posters displayed by the protesters at the Town Hall meetings, the 9/12 Rally and the Bachmann “Press Conference” rally, you can see that the Republican Party is slowly being taken over by the far right wing of the party.
When the intentions of a political party’s wing is to drum out those members who have different points of view and expects all followers to be in lock step-- or should I say goose step?-- with their ideology, then the political party that emerges looks no different from a Fascist or Communist Party.
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