Republicans have shown no sign of believing in "the right to keep your own money" or in limited government or in a "strong defense". Allowing rich people and corporations to make use of (and often ruin) public services without paying for them is not giving you "the right to keep your own money"; in fact, it's making you pay for the things they get more use from. Limiting the power of government to protect your Constitutional rights is not "limited government"; neither is allowing a president the power to summarily deprive individuals of those rights "limited government". Bankrupting the Treasury in order to give the DoD money it doesn't need (and doesn't spend wisely) while you go blow up other countries that posed no threat to the US is not "a strong defense".
Conservatives have always supported intrusive government, they have always endangered Americans by aggravating other countries, and they have always been very happy to collect taxes from ordinary working people and use that tax money to fatten the Malefactors of Great Wealth while depriving the rest of us of our freedoms. Those same people conned a number of libertarian-minded young people in the '70s and '80s into believing that conservatism was liberalism and vice-versa because a few intolerant lefties went overboard in their objections to morally reprehensible expressions of racism and sexism. I would have thought these kids would have grown up by now and realized that they're still paying taxes but under the Republicans they're getting less for them - and that's before the bill for all that "strong defense" comes due. How dumb they have to be to think it makes sense to be both Republican and gay after all this just doesn't bear thinking about.
All the reality-denying crap we hear day after day from Republicans on everything from Iraq to the economy to taxes to the environment has taken a toll on our collective psyche. I do believe that most Americans are tired of the Bush Presidency not just because of Iraq (although that is surely the most important reason), but because of its across-the-board refusal to acknowledge the way the world really is. I realize this may difficult for some to understand, so I shall try to be as brief as this little piece is:
The Republicans are morally bereft, intellectually bankrupt, and politically noisome. It is in our national interest to reign them in as soon as possible before we reach a point from which we cannot recover. To be fair, and equally unpartisan, the Democrats need either a spinal cord, or replacement also, because, while wielding authority, they have little power, and use what little they do have to aid and abet the criminality of the Republicans.
