The Anti-American GOP

How’s that for an inflammatory title?  I think I can support it, though.

Democracy is the philosophy which holds the United States of America together.  The rules apply to all.  We all pay taxes¹, taxes which we, through our elected representatives, have agreed to pay as an admission fee for a civilized country.  We all obey the same laws, laws which we, through our elected representatives, have agreed to obey to make our lives safer.  Yet one of our major political parties, the Grand Old Party, the Republican Party, is attempting to short circuit this grand experiment in self-government.   

Democracy cannot be enforced at the point of a bayonet².  It is a social and governmental compact to which we, as citizens and residents, have agreed.  The idea that all men are created equal, that there are certain inalienable rights which apply to all, requires fealty to the idea that we all must follow the same rules, tolerate the same red tape, stand in the same lines.  We expect there to be no special privileges such as the hochadel of the 1600s enjoyed, such as the lords of England enjoyed, such as the party members of the USSR enjoyed.

But democracy also requires three basic conditions — literacy, free time, and wealth.  And, since the Reagan Revolution of the early 1980s, what has been under attack by the new conservatives?  Education and middle class wealth, and the free time that wealth created.

The Tactics of Authoritarianism: Fear

They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers call this a new order.  It is not new and it is not order.
                   Franklin Delano Roosevelt

A Response From a Clued-In American to a Clueless Brit

Yunshui asked (on my post Happy Teabagging Day!) for an explanation of what the hell the right was trying to do with the whole teabagging thing:

Somebody fill me in here – as a Brit who, frankly, can’t be arsed hunting through an infinite pile of porn sites to find the current (political)definition of “teabagging”, I’m at a loss as to what all these teabaggers clogging up the intertubes are actually protesting about. Something to do with taxes? Can somebody please explain to me what “teabagging” is (I know enough slang to realise that it’s a very unfortunate choice of moniker, but I’m not entirely sure what the Republicans mean by it)?

Cheers in advance, clued-up Americans!