Democrats? Republicans? Is There a Difference?

How can you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving.

I guess that old joke needs to be updated to say “his or her,” but the essence still applies. Politicians of both parties have never been known for being truthful. At the moment, Democrats are viewed as the “working man's party,” while Republicans are seen as the part of the rich white guys, but that hasn't always been true - and isn't so much true anyway.

A bit of history first. Republicans are often fond of referring to themselves as “The Party of Lincoln,” even though no one familiar with today's Republicans could imagine them freeing slaves, unless it included shipping every lack individual back to Africa as part of he deal. Democrats, meanwhile, were the party that supported slavery in 1865, and for years the “Solid South” was a term used to mean that Republicans couldn't get elected for dogcatcher.

The reversal started happening with Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose “New Deal” promised to actually help poor people of any color. Since that time, self-described conservatives have been flocking to the Republican Party, though many have become independents or joined other splinter parties. Republicans since Reagan have also been co-opted by the Religious Reich, which has caused many non-religious Republicans who are conservative to leave. The lines between the parties have become so confused that I've often referred to them as Demopublicans or Republicrats, candidates who share enough of what seem to be the other party's values to make me wonder about genetic accidents.

Of course, given that neither party is logically consistent, one might well think that those labels could legitimately be applied to nearly any candidate. The Democrats, for example, often speak about protecting civil rights - unless, of course, we're talking about the right of a non-criminal to own or carry a handgun, in which case they are against them. The Republicans toss around “freedom” like they own the word, but in reality they support wage slavery and freedom only if you are doing something or marrying someone they approve of - selling yourself to a factory is fine, but renting yourself out for an hour for sex is a problem.

Not that Democrats are innocent of the latter, which again is one reason I use the combination terms. The problem is that nearly anyone who is elected to any office today is either wealthy themselves or has sold themselves to special interest groups - prostitution is okay if it's political. And yes, I recognize that to some extent every issue has a special interest group on both sides of it, but many of these SIGs are actively trying to use the laws to unethically take advantage of other citizens. My least favorite, of course, are the churches. These businesses sell afterlife insurance with no evidence whatsoever that their clients can ever collect. Sure, they perform a few public relations services in order to keep their ratings up, but are essentially no different from drug dealers selling escapes from reality. Laws have been passed giving them preferential treatment in most cases and a free ride as far as government services are concerned, as they pay no taxes.

In a sane society, no politician would admit to believing in a huge invisible fairy in the sky, yet politicians in both of our major political parties know that they cannot be elected without sucking up to these societal leeches and their delusional followers. So I ask you, does it really make that much difference which madman (or madwoman) occupies our government offices?

Well, yes, it does, sort of. While the Democrats kiss the hindquarters of religionists as much as the Republicans, at least most of them recognize the principle of state-church separation, though they haven't the guts to enforce it properly. In a truly principled society, all who declared a religion would be treated exactly as those who declared none, and all religious organizations would be treated like any other organization - taxed for activities that were not clearly charitable and non-discriminatory, including public relations activities that were clearly intended to promote religious belief more than help individuals.

I long for that day.