asses and elephants

for the longest time (really about 3 years) i have been asking my self, "self, why did you spend the majority of your youth as a republican?" i've been racked with guilt. barely able to live with myself! today i was reminded of the answer.

npr aired a commentary on reagonomics this morning, providing snippets from reagan's inaugural speech in 1980. reagan made lots of lofty promises to scale back the government and deregulate the economy. in addition he vowed to cut taxes and curb government spending. (he did the former but actually upped the latter in the effort to bankrupt the soviet union.) anyway, i'm going to avoid critiquing the merits of reaganomics, mostly because i have no idea what i am talking about. what i am going to do is justify my life as a republican for, oh let's say, 11 years.

by the time i got to high school and began to learn what the parties stood for, i really felt fortunate that i actually agreed with the ideologies of the republicans that i had been identifying myself with up until that point. (come on, unless you're alex p. keaton, you just kind of go with the family flow.) from what i remember, and i won't claim that it is much, repulicans = less government and democrats = more government. that was the fundamental basic that i remember being pounded into my brain over and over again. from where i stood, less government sounded great! i don't want the government telling me what to do after all. the great fucked up thing about this is the fact that this is not what the parties PRACTICE at all. i just didn't notice that. (i was an academic type who dealt more with ideas than reality.)

i guess i kind of feel like the parties hopped in bed with the educational system to pull the wool over my eyes. today, it is clear that the republicans are not about less government. much to the contrary. the fcc is a great example because, of course, it is a matter of national security if i see a little t & a on the boob tube. if something isn't done, i may not be able to have an abortion... even if i NEED one for medical reasons. now, i understand that the republicans do support less government when it comes to protecting the environment & meeting the medical needs of the sick/elderly, but who in their right and socially conscious mind could be in favor of such things?

ok i'm sick of typing about this, so i'm not even going to bother wrapping it up and making a nice neat little point. bottom line, kerry in 2004!