Health & Fitness
Who Are Republicans? What Do They Want?
In this, Richard Foster asks for your help in explaining what conservative Republicans really want.
Help urgently requested. I will buy a cup of coffee at Bruegger's for the first person who can give me a satisfactory answer – I get to define "satisfactory" – to this question: What do conservative Republicans believe in?
I used to think they believed in limited government. But Republicans were the strongest supporters of the USA Patriot Act, which gave unprecedented new police powers to the federal government. They believe in capital punishment, which means they think government should have the right to kill people, which is the ultimate reach of big government. Not only that, they (more than liberals) believe government should have the right to torture putative terrorists. They think government should ban abortions. Since they oppose big government spending, you'd think they would oppose big military spending, since this country spends about as much on its military as the rest of the world combined. But almost all Republicans want more spending there. They want lower taxes. Okay. But who doesn't?
Liberal Democrats are bleeding hearts who love to spend money on big government programs. I can't name one who doesn't believe in that. But what do Republicans believe in their heart of hearts?