#70 Why Today I’m not a Democrat

Journalists and public figures like Zell Miller are paid to tell why they switch parties. No one cares why a retired librarian in 2002 registered as a Republican for the first time. It was a long time coming--about 15 years.

In Al-Anon in the 80s, I learned our well-intentioned plans to change others for their own good are damaging. We kill initiative, ambition and make people resentful. The fall of the Soviet Union and most of eastern Europe sinking into a hopeless morass in the early 90s unable to stave off the criminal element also contributed to my changed thinking. Then the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings demonstrated what a mess our race and gender policies had become.

Safe, legal abortions (which I never supported but the Democrats did) were to “give women a choice.” Well, by 1991 we'd aborted 25 million babies and 58% of women with children under 6 were in the labor force. In 1950, only 12% of women with children under 6 were working. Were families really better off with women out of the home, I wondered? By the 90s there was more violence against women, more child abuse, and the surplus of women in all age groups was shrinking, not because men were living longer, but because women were dying at a faster rate than they used to.

In September 1992, I was a Democrat who was considering George H. W. Bush, for three reasons: abortion, Communism’s defeat, and Bush‘s resume for international politics was superior to Clinton‘s. But I lost confidence in Bush--his staff seemed in disarray, nothing had been said about the mess in the Balkans, and there was actually good news about the economy, but he seemed unable to address it. Anyway, I ended up voting for Clinton. In the next election I didn’t make that mistake. I was not a True Believer.

The Democrats continued to break up Americans into special interest groups--blacks, Hispanics, gays, Asians, Native peoples, etc. What we fought for in the 60s and 70s, being blind to race, is now reversed and called affirmative action. Our schools were held hostage by teachers’ unions and procedures and rules that encourage chaos.

Rich Democrats bankrolled liberal policies in environmentalism and animal rights that actually hurt the poor, like land restrictions which deprive the poor and minorities of housing in the cities and drive small farmers off the land. A Jessie Jackson or a Ted Kennedy can send his kids to private schools, but Democrats don’t want a poor or minority child given the same chance through school vouchers.

Working in the academic world where the 70s radicals were in power, also turned me against many of the liberal/socialist policies of my party. The political correctness, the lack of intellectual freedom, the blather and holier-than-thou attitudes, and layers of bureaucracy were stifling. But starting our own business in 1994 and actually experiencing the chunk of taxation we have at the local, state and federal level was the real wake-up call.

I was not particularly enthusiastic in 2000 about George W. Bush during his candidacy, but thought Gore was tainted by Clinton. Neither were effective campaigners. Now I believe Bush is far more in-charge, smart and tough than his detractors could ever have imagined. It has demoralized and angered the Democrats. I believe President Bush is doing the right thing in going after Saddam Hussein because we made promises to the Iraqi people and to the American people when we won the Gulf War. These promises were not kept, and we’re paying now. Hussein is another Stalin or Hitler or Mao, a leader who murders his own people. More Iraqis’ lives would have been lost if he had remained in power than through the 2nd Gulf War.

Zell Miller, a Democratic Senator from Georgia, said, “This is a president who understands the price of freedom. He understands that leaders throughout history often have had to choose between good and evil, tyranny and freedom. . . . This is also a president who understands that tax cuts are not just something that all taxpayers deserve, but also the best way to curb government spending. It is the best kind of tax reform. If the money never reaches the table, Congress can't gobble it up.”

I agree with a Democrat for the first time in years.