Apeboy's Musings

It seems trendy to announce your departure from the S.S. Titanic of political parties (the Republican party), but I liked some of the statements Sullivan made in his recent article, “Leaving the Right“. I added stars besides the ones I felt really really moved by.

**I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.

I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.

I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government’s minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.

**I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.

**I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

**I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

**I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

**I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.

I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.

**I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.

**I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.

I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.

I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.

Does this make me a “radical leftist” as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.

To paraphrase Reagan, I didn’t leave the conservative movement. It left me.

I continue to hold many of the Libertarian principles that made me vote that way in the two previous elections (before the last one), but right now, the banner is being carried by impostors scrambling to pickup the pieces and fill the vacuum left by 8 years of Bush and Neoconservatives.

..google the title and you’ll get a number of responses for this article. I found the reference in a recent Paul Krugram article on a similar subject.

Some choice excerpts from the original 1964 paper;

But the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American power. Their predecessors had discovered conspiracies; the modern radical right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.

another good one;

Finally, the country is infused with a network of Communist agents, just as in the old days it was infiltrated by Jesuit agents, so that the whole apparatus of education, religion, the press, and the mass media is engaged in a common effort to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans.

read on a digg.com comment posted to a Beck digg:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

Then, after spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, I drive back to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and the fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log onto the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

Johann Hari (of whom I’ve never read anything else from) really nailed a recent opinion piece I found on digg,  The Republican Party Is Turning Into A Cult

I wish the article had more links to all of the stories it references, but I otherwise know the occurrences they talk about, and they are really concerning.

Palin’s death panels lie (which has now spread to VA Death Books for veterans… more outright fear tactics. The guy authoring that opinion tried to sell the VA his own life planning book, but they refused. Bitter?), Laffer’s lack of understanding on Medicare, etc. etc.

If the mainstream republican response revolved around a constitutional discussion on the role of government, a constitutional lack of mandate for health care, or a debate on interstate commerce exploitation, then I’d be ready for that discussion. It would be intelligent, it would be practical, and it wouldn’t involve blatant lies and distortion.

While I’m not ready to agree completely with Hari that much of this hard right logic is based on “faith”, I will say its a very interesting observation that can probably help explain many of the irrational arguments and memes the right has been throwing around.

This commentary by Taunter Media, ‘Unconscionable Math‘ is an incredible glimpse into one of the games insurance companies play with their policy holders.

I’m especially outraged by them today, seeing as how I received my 2nd ‘denial of claim’ response from CIGNA for my wisdom tooth extraction. 4 years of paying premiums with no claims, and that’s what I get.

I had an emergency procedure out of network, while at the same time had some wisdom teeth removed (at the suggestion of the physician). Apparently wisdom teeth removal was far too outrageous of a claim for CIGNA to compensate me for, and I am thus DENIED. I think the solution will be to cancel my policy, pocket the $360/yr I send to CIGNA, and pay my EXTREMELY RARE dental procedures out of pocket.

I think in the end it’s their loss. How many significant dental procedures does a young male actually have in his life? I guess this is what a ‘free market’ approach means to Health Insurance. I buy a service, I get ripped off, and I’m forced to eat it and walk away. Normally it’s a lesson learned, but when it deals with your health, it just doesn’t seem right to me.