The Difference Between the Parties

I was listening to some babble on the radio the other day and someone posited that old saw that there's not much difference between the Repugs and the Dems. I started thinking about that again and realized that, the dependency on corporate graft notwithstanding (just the realities of million dollar plus campaigns these days), there really is a difference between the parties.

Leaving aside the rich-poor, mommy-daddy dichotomies, it occured to that it all boils down to responsibility and authority. The Repugs want the authority (the daddy side, I guess) but want to avoid the responsibility. The Dems want the responsibility, but are predisposed against authority.

This leads to the Repugs doing nothing useful but passing laws limiting our freedoms, while the Dems try to defend our freedoms and get the government to do useful things. This can be shown in the rise and fall of FEMA. FEMA was roundly decried as a useless pile of bureaucratic shit after 12 years of Reagan-Bush, then made a stunning turn-around under the Clinton administration. Now, after only 5 years of Bush Part Deux, FEMA is in even worse shape than it was before Clinton. Maybe this is what the Repugs mean by efficiency- doing 12 years of damage in only 5!

But if it comes down to limiting my freedoms and not doing anything to help the country as a whole, or a party struggling to help the downtrodden and the middle class, keep government and big business out of our bedrooms and our pockets, I know which one I'll pick.

And if you bring up the National Security argument, I have one riposte. Under Clinton, that 'soft on terror' President, the baddies only damaged the WTC. Under Mr Macho Fighter Pilot, the took them both down. Defend us from such defenders.