Democrats Or Republicans: It's The Same Scam!

Is there any legitimacy to the notion that Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right are dividing the future of the country by taking opposing views on key issues? Let’s take a quick look at the philosophies and policies allegedly separating the two main political parties in America.

We know, because campaign rhetoric and news anchors tell us, that Republicans are big on military spending and action, while Democrats want to downplay U.S. military involvement abroad and “brink the troops home”. Surely nobody wants war, so it makes sense to support the Democratic platform on this point, doesn’t it?

I mean, everyone knows Bush and Cheney poured billions of dollars into Iraq, a conflict that has ended thousands of American lives and killed perhaps a million people in the Middle East. The solution, for those who want peace, would obviously be to vote Democrat.

On the other hand, Obama (Democrat) has actually escalated the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus unilaterally authorized drone bombings and other actions in Pakistan and Yemen. In fact his first-term military spending has dwarfed the money bush allocated to the war on terror.

Could this be a fluke? Surely it’s not typical of the way peace-loving Democrats would run the nation.

Although, now that I think of it – Lyndon Johnson was a Democrat and he massively escalated the Vietnam War. The financial cost of Vietnam, largely waged under Johnson, adds up to approximately 0 billion. At one point the military draft under Johnson called for 35,000 new additions per month!

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This data somewhat erodes the anti-war platform of the Democratic Party. Maybe war statistics are a bad example; after all, a nation has to defend itself.

Let’s pick another oft-held dichotomy from the American two-party political system. How about this one:

Republicans are a fiscally conservative party. They seek to lower taxes, cut government spending (except on wars), and reduce the national debt.

This one should be easy to prove. All we need to do is look at how some recent Republican Presidents have whittled down the national debt and improved the economy.

Let’s start with George H. W. Bush. Oops, wait a second. He increased the national debt by a greater percentage than any (20th century) President prior to his administration.

Tell you what: Let’s skip forward to George W. Bush.

Uh-oh. He managed to borrow more money during his first term than any President in history prior to his time in office. His percentage of debt increase during his second term is greater than 20%; no wonder the comptroller general, the government’s head accountant, resigned in disgust!

Gee whiz. This isn’t going so well, is it?

In or effort to prove the anti-war rhetoric of the Democrats we find they have the same knack for war mongering as their Republican counterparts. Then, when we set out to demonstrate how fiscally conservative the Republicans are, when compared to the liberally taxing-and-spending Democrats, we discover how the last two Republican Presidents have buried the nation in debt!

What could all this mean? It’s tough to be sure, but off the top of my head I’d say there’s something a little shaky about this whole left-right paradigm we’re fed by political speechwriters and mainstream newspapers.

Here’s a thought, and I know this is going to sound radical, what if we stopped letting these jokers (Democrats and Republicans) tell us what the country needs? What if we take matters into our own hands and start researching, supporting, and even campaigning for who want to serve the people?

I know it’s crazy talk, but I just have to wonder what America would look like if the people stopped playing this ridiculous us-and-them, left against the right game and started really taking responsibility for the problems our laziness and inattention have created.