I'm an Irish Republican and have always wondered if there were any similarities between the Irish and American versions of republicanism. Thankfully, there seem to be none.
The GOP in the US is xenophobic, racist, homophobic and its policies continue to diminish American 'democracy'. The notion that the state has no role to play in society is simply stupid. The state is duty bound to help the less fortunate in society, especially as it is the policies of the Republican party which increases the numbers of the unfortunate who fall into that category.
The notion that every man, woman and child can start up their own business and become well enough off to take care of themselves is just utter nonsense. Not everyone knows how to run a business. And if everyone were a business person, from where would the get the staff they need to run the business?
Republicans 'trust' their god, but they worship the almighty (but increasingly less valuable) dollar.
Republicans decided globalisation would be good for the American economy, yet all that happened was that corporations and the few who own them got very rich, while American jobs have been exported en masse to China, which will, around the middle of the current century, become richer than the US and become the world's major economic power. The US will then be nothing more than a hollowed-out husk which will have to threaten others with its nuclear arsenal to get its way in the world, because it certainly won't be able to pay its way.
You call yourselves the richest nation on earth. But due to Republican economic profligacy, yours is the most indebted nation on earth, which means the US is the poorest nation, not the richest. It will take hundreds of years for you people to pay off what you owe the world. Because of Republican greed, you will soon be dancing to China's tune. In the land of the 'free' you are watched and monitored as much if not more than ever was the case in formerly communist nations.
Your votes are absolutely worthless, and your presidents, one and all, Republican or Democrat, and of no matter what skin tone, are all what we in Ireland call 'butt-boys' for the small and uber-wealthy cadre of right wing extremists who really run your nation.
You republicans relish the sight of starving, homeless and sick people being forced to live on your streets. You look down your comfortable noses at them as if you're better than them. You're not.
You throw people out of hospital needing treatment simply because they can't pay. You ghettoise those you consider 'undesirable', such as gays, black people, latinos and other ethnicities because they aren't good old white anglo-saxon Protestants. You call the Democrats 'socialist' and accuse them of wanting the government to be able to control all facets of life in the US.
It was the GOP which greatly extended the role of the US government in controlling US citizens by introducing the Patriot Act under that buffoon GW Bush. Not the Democrats. The Democrats are no better than the GOP, because, as I said, your two political parties are simply both sides of the same coin. Except the Democrats are less morally repugnant in their social views than most Republicans are.
You Republicans claim Americans are the best people in the world. You're not. Republicans claim to be for fairness and traditional values, such as upholding the sanctity of human life, yet look at your history in the 20th century, and the millions of people your nation, under predominantly republican presidents, has exterminated from the face of the earth, and simply because they chose a political system different to your own. Where was your respect for family values and the sanctity of human life when these people were being napalmed or vaporised?
You started an illegal war in Iraq over weapons of mass destruction, when your nation has the dubious honor of being the only nation on earth ever to use weapons of mass destruction. Your 'democracy' reeks of hypocrisy. And your 'democracy' is mostly the result of Republican values. I would be worried about that if I were American, which, thankfully, I'm not.
Instead of talking to and beginning to understand the Muslim world, you wage war against it, so that the entire world now has reason to fear Muslim extremists. Just as in Ireland where Ian Paisley was the best recruiting sergeant the hateful IRA ever had, Republican foreign policy in the US drives hordes of gullible Muslims straight into the ranks of Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist organizations. Yet you cling to archaic and outmoded value systems in the forlorn hope that your will shall prevail, when it will not.
American Republicanism frightens me more than any 'commie' threat that you engineered to scare the bejesus out of your unquestioning citizenry. American politics needs a radical overhaul to return power to the American people, and not the American corporations acting through the personage of the incumbent President.
Left to Republicans, black and ethnic Americans would still be second-class citizens, possibly slaves and definitely economically disenfranchised and marginalised. Human rights would be practically non existent.
The American Empire, built up since the end of World War Two, is crumbling, just as Rome did. Your future is one of diminishing influence, diminishing economic prosperity and decay. Look at the industrial wastelands all over America that you just allow sit there. In Europe, we don't allow that. We use the land for other purposes, social and economic. You just abandon them to rot and blight your cityscapes. In future, there will be much much more of this, many more dead and dying US cities, from whence the jobs have been exported by Republican economic policy to cheap labor jurisdictions which grow rich as you grow poor.
When will the US ever learn? You simply are unable or unwilling to see what's staring you right in the face: America is sliding at full tilt into decay, poverty and social disintegration. Republicans are responsible for that. Republicans are responsible for your obscene national debt of almost £12 trillion (sterling, not dollars).
No president, Republican or otherwise, since world war two has made any effort to even ateempt to reduce your deficit. It just grows and grows and grows and grows. You'll soon get to the stage where your entire GDP will be required to service your debt, and note, I said service, not reduce. The Grand Old Party? No thanks!
