Republicans Averse to Democracy and Sermon on the Mount

Ayn Rand: Guru of the Republican Party

If I were a Republican, I would be concerned about what my party has become. In the last election they campaigned on creating jobs. That's a good thing. They campaigned on curtailing excessive government spending. Another good thing. They campaigned on no new taxes. Not a good thing if that is GOP-speak for "let's renew the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy."


Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that the only jobs they were interested in were patronage jobs for their cronies and contributors. In fact, their first efforts were to eliminate the existing jobs of public workers like police and firemen.


Their idea of curtailing government spending was to do it at the expense of the middle class and the poor while providing energy and agricultural companies with huge subsidies. And of course they insisted on continuing the "temporary" Bush tax breaks for the super wealthy.


These items are some of the many that explain why I am not a Republican. On the other hand, disregarding the above, I suspect my Republican friends are now wondering what has happened to the Grand Old Party. First of all, there was Sarah Palin. Enough said. Then they watched as the so-called Tea Party became the tail that wagged the dog. If that were not enough, along comes Donald Trump with his dog-and-pony show.


But more recently, many whom the GOP had courted with protestations of Christian fundamentalism  were astounded to learn that real spiritual guru of the Republicans (Ryan, the Pauls, and the Kochs etc.) is Ayn Rand with with her gospel of selfish greed and her distaste, nay, hatred,  for Christianity. She finds the Sermon on the Mount despicable. Sorry about that, Christian conservatives. It appears Karl Rove and friends were just using you. You, I suspect, would be surprised at the things Ayn Rand has said.


But certainly, Republicans were committed to the concept of democracy. According to George W. Bush one of the reasons our youth were being sacrificed on the altar of Iraq was to spread democracy throughout the Mideast. 


Just a minute. This week we heard from the new Republican governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, who informed us that democracy is a problem. We were always aware that Republicans worked to keep Americans from voting, but we attributed that to their fear of fraud or of being the minority party, but now we know what they really want is a plutocracy. As Governor Snyder said: “Every single one of those places has just been told that them having locally elected officials, that’s a problem,That democracy is in the way of making things more efficient in Michigan, that Democracy is not the way we fix problems in America, that it is a problem.” (MSNBC Rachel Maddow)


Nothing like unbridled capitalism in an efficient plutocracy!