Silent Screams

I have long been loathe to stray too far from the Republican party in support of a third party candidate simply because of the prospect of spoiling any chance of unseating a Democrat. Ross Perot comes to mind for he was instrumental in giving us President Bill Clinton. My mind is slowly changing, however, as I come to realize that the party to which I have been a lifelong member has demonstrated lately that it is not all that different from the Democrat party, it is only a different hue.

This was in evidence in New York's 23rd Congressional district on Saturday when Republican Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the race with Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative party member Doug Hoffman. On Sunday, rather than embracing Hoffman, she threw her support to the Democrat Owens, betraying the Conservative wing of the Republican party and revealing that she was a liberal RINO who would have done us no good at all had she stayed in and won. Since Sunday, Hoffman - a third party candidate - has surged in the polls.

Politico is also reporting that this is not an isolated movement, as Conservatives are lining up even now in preparation for 2010, and plan to challenge Republican incumbents and candidates alike. Dick Armey, chairman of FreedomWorks, an organization that has been closely aligned with the tea party movement, refers to it as the "tip of the spear". While developing inroads into national politics is most definitely an uphill battle, it is not only possible but, as we're seeing of late, more likely by the day.

The reasons are plain to see. There are many amongst the Republican party who yearn for a return to Conservative ideals for the brand, keeping the party alive while transforming it back to the days of Reagan. But with betrayal after betrayal, such as those of Arlen Specter and Dede Scozzafava, no assurances will any longer suffice. If the mere threat of a serious challenge by Conservatives appears to alter the current course of the Republicans, what guarantees do we have that, once elected, they won't revert back to their liberal ways?

We allowed the left to basically thrust John McCain upon us, thus ensuring the election of the most radical person ever to occupy the White House. After ten months on the job, the only positive Obama has produced is the tardy fervor of ordinary Americans, once reticent to mobilize, to suddenly become a genuine force to be reckoned with, as evidenced by the spate of Town Hall meetings last summer. Certainly it was Democrats who bore the brunt of America's fury but Republicans couldn't possibly ignore it.

But they did, and they continue to ignore it at their own peril. Third party candidates historically have come to the fight naked and alone, offering little challenge and receiving nothing but scorn. Now they lead an army of angry citizens disgusted with the state of our nation and frustrated at their once silent screams; legions of people infuriated at Congress for their refusal to obey the halt order. As we demand that they leave our health care alone, they plow ahead defiantly, not forgetting but arrogantly denying that they work for us.

Well, it is no longer party time. The party is over, but we'll leave the lights on so that a brave new wave of true representatives can see the mess they will have to clean up without tripping over the debris. And the debris is strewn across the nation as the wreckage of a mid-flight explosion of an airliner, on a much grander scale.

Through their obsequious manner - even when they controlled Congress - the Republicans have abandoned us and the nation, paving the way for every imaginable fetish to be normalized. Now these once deviant thoughts and lifestyles are no longer normal, they are preferential in the eyes of government. What was once unspeakable is now portrayed as mainstream, and those who oppose it are the weird ones. How in God's name did we get to this point?

Forty years ago it would have been political suicide to publicly revere someone like Mao Tse Tung, but now a White House official speaks loving of the monster and those who gasp at such a thing are considered the kooks. It is quite astounding.

The only alternative left is to shun both parties and start from scratch. This is as good a time as any to start.

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