Democrats complicate things. They add new laws to protect and defend and give us safety nets and shelter in the rain. Republicans say they want to simplify, but they don’t. They put the world in black and white and write and support new laws that try to force the world into this stark vision.
After all, both parties are filled with Law Makers, so they all make new laws. That is my problem. We have enough laws. We need the new Republicans to be the Anti-lawmakers, the simplifiers, the de-regulators, the watchers and reporters, who show us the truth, the transparancy. We do not need more enforcers and disciplinarians, and an authoritarian regime that is Right when all who disagree are necessarily Wrong.
A Republican Party I could joint, could support, could become enthusiastic about is a Republican Party that doesn’t restrict sex, drugs, rock & roll, dance, religion, rap music, media… If they would get out of the restrictions and censorship business and really try to simplify government I would join. Not that I am a Democrat (I am independent) but I would like a party that did not take a stand for or against abortion, gay marriage, health insurance… My party would try to get the government out of that business.
If a Republican could crusade against stupid laws that Republican Party would be very, very busy. If the Republican Party Platform could delete any mention of marriage, gay or otherwise, family values, abortion, sex, immigration, drugs, religion, alcohol, crime and punishment… As it is now, Democrats seem to pass laws to protect us from the possibility that Republicans could, some day, extinguish our civil rights.
If the Party Platform were, for example, that it is NOT the government’s place to enforce, sanction, or otherwise support marriage of any kind, then, we could have true simplification. Whenever Democrats propose a new law about marriage Republicans could only look to simplify, to oversee but not to meddle.
Equal Rights under the law? Republicans could be the champions if they would just not meddle, but rather oversee. Why not propose non-binding UN style arbitration of complicated issues to establish and recognize new, innovative and already common cultural norms? Why do we need new laws to enforce and punish people for living as they already live.
No one needs to say “we are in favor of legalization of….” anything. We would say “we don’t want new laws to complicated and cloud the issues”. The issue becomes to simplify what we have so that fewer people are criminal, fewer go to jail for life style and non-agressive or violent behavior.
If the Republicans want to re-invent themselves as the conservative party that Americans can support, Republicans need to support deregulation of pretty much everything, including themselves. Support a smaller Congress, a smaller paycheck, less benefits for themselves. I guarantee everyone in the world will admire them for that. Deregulation is called for because of the information revolution. Support the idea that nothing is hidden, nothing is secret, that if there is something immoral or wrong about anything going on we do not need to imprison, we need to publish.
Don’t fill our prisons with drug users, prostitutes, non-violent criminals. Tax them. Publish their names and addresses. Stick convictions on their identity so that everyone knows it, and let the society produce the sanctions, not the government.
