1960 was an exciting year for me. As a recent college graduate and new Navy ensign, I was embarking on my life as an adult. Perhaps most exciting was registering to vote for the first time, as a Republican. For a conservative-leaning moderate on fiscal matters and a liberal-leaning moderate on social issues, the Republican Party was a good place to be.
But today's GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln or Eisenhower or even Ronald Reagan. The Bush Republican Party has moved so far to the right and is so intolerant of dissent that there is simply no room for moderates anymore.
So after more than 40 years as a Republican, I changed party affiliation. I simply could no longer associate my name with the neo-conservative extremists who have hijacked the Republican Party and have abandoned so many of its most cherished principles. Here are just three.
No element of fiscal management has been more important to the traditional Republican leadership than a balanced budget. Irrespective of which party controlled the White House or Congress, Republicans have fought to avoid large deficits. No more.
In three short years, this president and his party have converted the largest surplus in history into the largest deficit. In the fiscal year that just ended, the Bush administration spent well over four hundred billion dollars more than it collected, the largest deficit in U.S. history, with similar red ink projected for the current year.
Why? Because Bush is determined to push through huge tax cuts, primarily benefiting the wealthy while funding enormously expensive military operations.
As Senator John McCain (R.-Ariz.) observed, never before has the federal government cut taxes in the middle of a war. Perhaps Vice President Cheney's position was the only rationale needed: \We won the mid-terms [2002 Congressional elections] ... This is our due.""
Republicans have always defended the sovereignty of the 50 states against overzealous intervention by the federal government. But when it comes to the right of a terminally ill patient to die with dignity, this principle is notably absent.
In 1994, Oregon voters passed a statewide initiative authorizing physicians to prescribe, but not administer, lethal drugs to dying patients who meet specific criteria. Shortly after taking office, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a directive threatening to prosecute physicians so prescribing under the Controlled Substances Act. In a ringing rejection of this ""unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers,"" the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote:
""The principle that state governments bear the primary responsibility for evaluating physician-assisted suicide follows from our concept of federalism, which requires that state lawmakers, not the federal government, are the primary regulators of professional medical conduct.""
Why was this not obvious to the president and his attorney general?
The Republican Party has a long history of protecting individual rights and freedoms. Consider, then, the case of the morning-after pill.
There are 3 million unwanted pregnancies in this country each year. By prescription, the morning-after pill (proven extraordinarily safe and effective for more than a decade) has helped prevent that figure from being even higher. Nevertheless, the Bush FDA disregarded the recommendation of its own panel (by a 19 to four vote) and refused to allow the sale of this medication over the counter, thereby denying millions of women access to last-minute contraception.
Why? Principally, because Bush and his supporters from the religious right believe that a united sperm and egg immediately constitutes a human being-even before it is implanted in the womb. Therefore, they contend, any disruption of the process constitutes killing a human being.
Clearly, abortion is a subject about which reasonable people can disagree. But when did it become acceptable for personal religious beliefs to dictate public health policy? When did our democracy become a theocracy?
Perhaps one day the Republican Party will disassociate itself from those who seek to impose their personal version of God's word on the rest of us and from those who think that pandering to wealthy campaign contributors with huge income tax cuts constitutes viable economic policy. Until then, I will remain affiliated with the Democratic Party-the only major party that still values dissent and moderation and still cares about the welfare of the average American.
