Below The Beltway

Adam Bitley, who blogs at Red Virginia, joins those who realize that the Republican Party has abandoned the principles it claims to stand for:

After much thought and consideration, realizing that I would never see the day when the Republican party as it currently stands (and has for the last 40 years) truly deliver on the promise of limited government, I have decide that I would look elsewhere for candidates.  When I made this decision I got a lot of heckling from those inside the GOP.  Even more interesting was the fact that I was called a purist!  How could I be a purist if I support a platform that the party has adopted and the candidates have sworn to uphold?  Isn’t that called following the rules?  Shouldn’t those in violation of those rules be punished?  From all of my experiences with the GOP, those who follow the platform (rules) are the ones who are punished.  Just ask me and I could give you a dozen examples.

I left this party sick, sick of the backroom politics and underhanded lying.  People like Bob McDonnell who say one thing but do another, the people who run the local parties, the people involved in state party leadership, the people who tell everyone else how things run.  I am sick of it.  I am sick of being involved in a party that prides itself on running horrible candidates who defy what they claim to believe in.

Ron Paul was right; there is something wrong with the Republican Party.  I was so involved in the party hierarchy that when Dr. Paul first came about, I like my fellow counterparts rejected his ideas as falsehoods.  But, I am proud to say, I was smart enough to realize my mistake.  After taking a second look at not only what Dr. Paul says, but also what he has done and continues to do, I realize that he is what is needed.   He is also 100% correct on his analysis of the current state of the GOP.

(…)

I am in this fight until the end.  That end is achieving a limited government that operates within the laws set forth by our Constitution.  People should not be scared of their government; government should be scared of their people.  We all know that there is something wrong the GOP and now is the time to fix it.

Adam is right, and there’s very little that I can add to what he says because I pretty much agree with all of it.

Take Ron Paul. He wasn’t the perfect candidate, he wasn’t really a good campaigner, and he was full of flaws, but what was there about the substance of what he was saying that someone who believed in limited government and individual liberty could really disagree with ? Instead of nominating him, though, the Republican Party nominated the man whose best known legislative “accomplishment” eviscerated the First Amendment like nothing since the Alien and Sedition Acts. Instead of welcoming the people who supported him, the Republican Party at all levels has shunned them and done everything it can to exclude them from participating in the party. If that’s not an indication that the Republican Party doesn’t really believe in what it preaches, I don’t know what is.

That’s not to say there isn’t hope. There are some elements of the GOP, represented by groups like the Republican Liberty Caucus, that actually respect individual liberty and limited government. They just don’t have enough support or power in the party right now.

But, like I said there is hope. It’s looking more and more like John McCain is not only going to lose on November 4th, but lose quite handily. We’re also likely to see at least 9-10 additional Democrats in the House and 4-5 additional Democratic Senators. It will, in other words, be a bloodbath for the GOP.

Out of that defeat, though, may come a chance to fight for a new Republican Party that actually means what it says, rather than the perverted cronyism and hypocrisy that we’ve seen for nearly a decade now. Or, it could mean more of the same with new names at the helm like Huckabee and Romney.

As for this year, I’m voting for Bob Barr and I’ll sit back on Election Night sipping a Tanquerey and Tonic and watching the beginning of what will probably be a painful four-to-eight years of Obama-mania. Maybe by then, there will be a Republican worth voting for on the national level.