remember the good old days!

I was a liberal Republican. I voted for GW Bush, because he told us he was a uniter not a divider. He went on to become one of the most divisive politicians in our nation's history. He spoke Spanish, and I thought that mean support for minorities. His VP had a lesbian relative, and I thought that meant gradual modernization of the party's position on gay rights. He supported the laizze faire economics I held dear, and I thought that meant prosperity for all. I went along with the Iraq war, because I trusted what I was told. The party supposedly supported all business, especially small business, and I thought that meant more jobs for Americans. He supported Greenspan, who I (an atheist) almost worshipped as the Economic God our of age.

I have been lied to. I recognize that now. I own responsibility for that.

Our economy lies in ruins. The economic policies I was told were good for everyone, turn out to have a rotten side never mentioned, where the topdogs gained all of the material benefits. Meanwhile, those same topdogs tell us that those at the very bottom have no sense of personal, individual responsibility. Then they herd those individuals into huge groups, and assign them a group responsibility with high interest rates--in effect, holding individuals responsible for paying for others' irresponsibility--a corporate financial shell game of collectivism. And those top dogs took heaping cuts of interest rates that held the working group at the bottom hostage, with no material gain from increased productivity of their labors.

And their paid political hacks in the party didn't support small business at all. Their drug programs benefit megacorps, their regulations benefit megacorps, their policies benefit megacorps. Under the Bush administration, small businesses lost their position as the major generator of new jobs in the American economy. Meanwhile, megacorps continue their game of divide and conquer, acquiring and merging and laying off workers at every turn of the game.

And though the party has gay and lesbian workers inside the machine, the talking heads at the top say what the socially conservative faction wants to hear. My gay and lesbian friends suffer from inequities in the workplace and at home, have problems adopting the kids they love, have problems getting their loved ones health insurance, can't file joint taxes like other families.

Well, I've had it. I have waited long enough for my party to change--it hasn't, so I will. I am resigning from the Republican Party today.

I was told socialized medicine was a great evil. I believed that for a long time. Then I sat down and watched Sicko, actually did my own research. Socialized medicine? Hell, we have corporate socialism in our healthcare industry, supporting a few rich players at the top at the expense of everyone else. We have billions for rich bald dudes with limp wangs, but nothing for the poor kid with a broken arm or his mom with cancer.

I was told France was weak, because of their socialism. Yet when I look into their "weak" system, I see a country that sends heated wagons out on the coldest winter days to gather up the homeless and send them somewhere with heat and food.

So I ask, perhaps socialism ain't so bad. Another thing I have been lied to about.

I give up on you, Republican Party. Last week was the last straw. Obama (I voted for him) opened the door of bipartisanship, and you slammed it in his face. The voting on the stimulus package, the rejection of the Commerce Department Secretary position, the diatribes about gov't spending & debt being bad--when any college freshman economics class shows the multiplier effect of gov't spending to get our economy out of the doldrums faster. Republicans don't seem ignorant about such basic things, but to go political because of purely political advantages--that seems stupid to me.

I give up on you, Republican Party. May you rot in hell.

Maybe I can become a Democrat. Anybody got a handbook for aspiring new members?