The Huge Ideological Difference

There is a huge and important difference between Democrats and Republicans that stems from their ideologies. Typically, Democrats address "symptoms" while Republicans address "problems." Let's look at a few "big picture" examples.

When Democrats think about unemployment, they think "federal assistance;" Republicans think "create new businesses." When Democrats think about the increasing costs of goods, they think "add regulations and raise the minimum wage;" Republicans think "remove barriers and increase competition in the marketplace." When Democrats think about the workplace, they think "worker's comp and liability insurance;" Republicans think "progress, innovation, and society." When Democrats see a dangerous product, they think "regulation;" Republicans think "individual responsibility." When Democrats see high gas prices they think "windfall profits tax;" Republicans think "invent new technologies."

The same is true in more than just the marketplace. When Democrats think about terrorists, they think about "the act;" Republicans think about "the causes." When Democrats think about crime they think "law;" Republicans think "culture." When Democrats think about protection, they think "police;" Republicans think "self-defence." This fundamental difference in thought gives rise to the foundational premises of the ideologies themselves.

While is both quicker and easier to address a symptom (as the Democrats inherently do) it leads to terrible systemic issues. Because of this difference in the way policy is instituted, Democrat "fixes" are typically quick acting kludges which bring huge problems with them, whereas Republican solutions are far better but take time to be vetted into society.

It is partially because of this fundamental difference that I say Bush has often acted like a Democrat. From the increase in the size of our federal government (with organizations like the Homeland Security Department), to the types of added regulatory policies and executive orders, people would be hard pressed to call Bush anything close to a Republican. For sure, there are a few areas where he is 'sort of' a "Republican," but mostly, he's an ideological centrist and has behaved like a Democrat all to often.

That brings up something that really bothers me. It's the idea that somehow, the "party affiliation" of the "President" should attract the finger of blame when there are "problems" to address. I want to discuss that with some contemporary examples.

In the 80's, the GOP built good financial policy; they controlled the White House and the Senate; the House was Dem controlled. Technology was booming, the economy was booming, new industries were being created left and right. The Democrat controlled House was trying to stop the progress though policy, but it was a mixed group.

The Dems got a very shady break by taking the Senate in 1987, thus controlling both houses of Congress for the entire time of GHW Bush's Presidency. But, their lousy policies and huge unpopularity again was "pointed" at the incumbent president, rather than at themselves - thereby setting up some of the conditions for Bill Clinton to, in essence, sneak into office.

When Clinton took office in the 90's, he did so partly, and quite ironically, by way of the public dissatisfaction with his own party's policies; the Dems unpopularity (as they controlled Congress), was being tacked onto an incumbent GOP President. But even more importantly, a quirky voting fluke without which Clinton would have lost badly was the real culprit. Ross Perot gathered 20% vote, and almost 100% of it was Republican. So, why did Republicans vote for Perot? Because GHW Bush was starting to behave like a centrist Democrat. Republicans lost by splitting their own vote because Bush was trending centrist and that allowed a far distant third choice into office.

So, when Clinton came in he was riding this great economic and technological wave built by the GOP, which was being tarnished and clouded by the Democrat controlled Congress from 1987. Then he, along with Congress, did almost everything they could to completely derail it.

In the approximate two years that the Dems had full control, they became so unpopular with their pushing of big government/big spend federal programs and socialistic mantras that in 1994 there was what is commonly known as the "Revolution of 1994." Republicans quickly took back control of both the House and Senate. And, it is because of this that the 90's continued to see economic growth, in deference to the Clinton administration.

Clinton tried, without success to institute policies like the "imputed" income tax, where people would be taxed based on not only their income (which is already wrong) but also on "extra credits" they have. For example, if you owned but did not rent your house, you would pay extra taxes on the difference between your payment and the average rent in the area. This was a typical Democrat, "Clintonesque," idea. That wasn't the only bad policy, of course.

There were all sorts of Democrat "tax and spend" programs, but most were able to be partially (but not fully) prevented by the GOP, such as Clinton's idiotic federal heath care plans and extreme expansion of the welfare state. The GOP thus prevented Clinton from instituting a slew of horrible measures that spanned areas from economy to public policy. But, not every abatement was successful and some, unfortunately, made it though the cracks. For instance, "his" versions of NAFTA, the Family and Medical Leave Act, various tax increases and Progressive Taxation, his "far too many to enumerate" foreign policy fiascoes (such as Somalia, North Korea, China, etc.) his constant attacks on the Constitution -- including the entire Bill of Rights, and especially the 1st and 2nd Amendments (which greatly hurt America); the list goes on. Note the typical, small-minded, wrong-headed, "fix" the symptom philosophies throughout. These would be used by Clinton (and the media) for later political pandering to the masses.

At the end of Clinton's term, some of those things finally caught up with the country. Economically, it helped crashed us in 2000; foreign policy wise, it set up the worst terrorist attack in our history. But, it seems like people forget all of this.

Not only had Clinton helped pave the way for domestic disaster, but his complete incompetence in foreign affairs allowed nearly every country to come technologically up to similar footing as the United States; including building the China powerhouse and allowing them to have the neutron bomb. At the end of his term, you had someone who had forced damaging anti-liberty domestic policy and allowed terrorists to bomb with impunity; who at every opportunity threw away decades of solid robust economic insight while expanding the worst of our socialistic practices; who slashed our defence network, increased our taxes, burdened small business, fostered a culture of insurance and liability, ushered in an unprecedented era of 'irresponsibility,' helped crash the stock market and tech sector, and even get impeached.

When GW Bush came in, he inherited a lot of these problems. And, to make matters worse, shortly into his first term there was an attack on the U.S. mainland (thanks in part to those Clinton policies) the likes of which had never been seen before. But the problem was (and still is), that on many important issues, Bush acted just like a Democrat. But, do you ever wonder why no one in the media points this out??

To even make matters even worse, in 2006 the Democrats took control of congress -- again, because the finger of dissatisfaction being pointed at the President's incumbent party. True to their quick "fix the symptom" philosophy, the Democrats immediately started to push policy piecemeal through congress - one totalitarian law after another; each day another socialist move and liberty killing legislative dagger (energy bill, minimum wage increase, etc). It didn't take long for systemic problems to ripple to the surface - both gas prices and the prices of consumer goods skyrocketed. Gas went from $2.16 to $4.50 in less than two years after Democrats took control. But, nobody notices both the timing and the policies that caused this? And, what did the leftist media keep saying??

For those who have forgotten, even though Bush was sometimes (and increasingly) behaving like a Democrat, during the time the GOP controlled congress, we had several years of economic growth - even after Clinton's terrible debacle, the tech crash, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But after all that, the economic growth itself was never even acknowledged. Nor was the low unemployment ever talked about. The mass media has had a clear, obvious, specific agenda from day one.

Remember, it was after the Democrats took control of Congress (principally because the leftists had used the Iraq war as a propaganda tool to shape public perception), that things really started to go down.

Today, Democrats are in control of Congress and the media is still saying that the "faltering" economy hurts the -- Republicans? Again, with Bush acting like like a Democrat (and more with each passing day; now this "bailout" fiasco), how hard is it for people to realize that such Democrat and leftist style policies are the problem, and that those Democrat types of policies are actually the 'status quo?'