When the Right's Wrong, What's Left?

By Gary Nolan

CNSNews.com Commentary

June 10, 2003

When I changed parties a few years ago, many of my Republican friends couldn't believe it. After all, I'd been a Republican since my first vote.

I had long dreamt of the day when the Republicans would win control of the House and Senate. In 1994 I got my wish. I was certain the policies Ronald Reagan espoused would soon become a reality.

Spending and taxes would fall faster than sweat from a fat man's brow on a hot day in Juarez. Freedom from government regulation would reign across the land. Political expedience in the legislature would come to a screeching halt.

I'm not sure when I realized I'd been hoodwinked. Maybe it was the passage of one of those expensive Bud Schuster highway bills, or the failure to get rid of the National Endowment for the Arts. It could have been the failure to cut corporate welfare, or the constant caving by the Republican leadership.

It might have been seeing prominent Republicans fighting for more gun control, tobacco legislation and "campaign finance de-form." The neo-cons had taken over the party and I was through. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the party left me.

I joined the Libertarians, the party with principle. Some of my friends have come to agree with me. Others cling to the faint hope that Republicans will someday live up to their small-government rhetoric. But personally, I feel you'd be safer trusting a rabbit to deliver a carrot than to trust the new Republican Party to stand by the Constitution.

Think I'm being too harsh? Here's the neo-Republican record.

The much-hated Clinton "Americorps" program has received hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding.

The Department of Education, once a target for elimination by Republicans has a new benefactor, the Republicans. In his first budget, President Bush asked for a 72% increase for primary, secondary and vocational education. With the passage of the "No Child Left Behind Act," the federal government is more involved in local education than ever before.

How about the despised "Gore Tax" - the hidden tax the phone companies are forbidden to list on your bill? The tax Republicans once called "unconstitutional." It's still on the books.

Did the tobacco lawsuits end? Actually, the Republican attorney general has pursued this extortion plan just like his Democrat predecessor, Janet Reno.

Think Republicans oppose federal interference in state and local affairs? Think again. Federal officials, paid for with your tax dollars, have been actively campaigning against state and local medical marijuana initiatives.

But since these initiatives keep winning by 2:1 margins, a "conservative" Republican has now introduced legislation that would allow federal agencies to spend your taxpayer dollars on advertising to influence the outcome of such initiatives.

The nose of the camel is already inside the tent and we'll soon be seeing the camel's other end.

The list goes on and on. More money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, steel tariffs, and billions of dollars from hard working Americans sent to Africa to fight AIDS.

It's not too difficult to understand where the Republicans went wrong. They were taught by the Democrats that getting elected is a simple matter of buying the vote. What better incentive to gain votes than promising free health care, job training, education and cheese?

The neo-cons have compromised a once-great vision of small government - a government not involved in nation building; a government that respects the rights of individuals; a government that is fiscally sound, with low taxes and even lower spending. The Republicans are now the party of neo-tax cuts, no spending cuts and deficits.

Now we have a larger government than even Bill Clinton asked for, the "Patriot Act", and more debt than you can shake a bankruptcy file at. I do know what's right and I do know who's left. Libertarian thinkers, they're right and they're all that's left.

Gary Nolan is a candidate for the Libertarian Party nomination for president.