Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore. Photo from NBC news
We’ll even turn the story around and make ourselves the victim and the victim the perpetrator!
Above is the poster boy for Republican ethics these days. This is the party that has bragged for decades about their “family values” and their morality. But behind the scenes they acted like a freshman boy his first year away from home. Some do what is right, but many party hearty and tell Mom and Dad fables of being good.
It is not the sexual stories only that offer the proof a real lack of family values. Those are the stories that get the headlines and get the tongues wagging. However, when you think about families and what they really value is where you can truly evaluate just how bereft of “family values,” or nearly any kind of values for that matter, the Republican party really is.
Let us start with the very core of family itself, the parents and the children. We are now nearing day 50 since the Children’s Health Program (CHiP) expired at the federal level. There has been nearly no movement in trying to restore the program. Within a couple of weeks funding at state level will begin to dry up. Like a slow tsunami states will be shutting down their children’s health programs unless something is don.
The Republicans in charge ignore that immediate fire to concentrate on their value which is to give massive tax cuts to the massively wealthy by Christmas. In order to pay for those tax cuts for the massively wealthy there will have to be cuts somewhere. Looks like health care programs that many Americans rely on – Medicaid, Medicare and the ACA – will be chopped bigly to get the rich their tax cuts. No sacrifice is too small for the Republican party.
When you think of families you think of food. No doubt Republicans will be thinking of food also as they cut into the SNAP program – or food stamps if you prefer – to make those tax cuts for the wealthy a reality. Rather than help poor folks directly they will soothe their consciences with stories of the fantasy of ‘trickle down’ economics that has never worked and never will.
While we are on the subject of children, let me remind you that Republicans are working their tails off to send DACA children to countries where they have never lived. Why? Because they can and it shows how tough they are. This won’t bring back jobs, in fact it will cause a loss of jobs. Also exiling children to an unknown country seems like one of the most morally depraved acts I have ever heard of. This is Republican family values.
Republicans have spent the better part of the past 50 years widening and exploiting divisions in this country. from the days of Nixon’s “southern strategy” to today’s alt-right marches and defense of treasonous “heroes” of the Civil War. They use people from foreign lands to promote fear. They raise hate for those in our midst who are a bit different such as homosexuals, transgendered, people of color, people whose first language is not english.
Women fall into a special category for Republicans. Women are treated as second class citizens. What morality Republicans claim to have is often expended in imposing values from the bronze age on women in the 21st century. This is not morality. Instead it is an imposition of power on one gender over another in an age when equality is supposed to be the guiding principal.
Since we brought up equality, perhaps the largest fail in morality is the concentration of wealth and power in a few hands. The widening inequality in wealth and power (as evidenced by voter suppression laws and lack of transparent elections) is perhaps the most immoral actions of the Republican Party. Since day 1 of this new administration the focus has been on moving more and more wealth to those at the top. This is wealth that will come from those at the bottom of the economic and social scales, thus ever widening the inequalities.
The trump card that Republicans always pull out in their claim to moral high grounds is their opposition to abortion. That is a truly hollow and cynical ploy however when the baby that may be born may well come into the world in poverty with no access to health care, a good family, decent schooling or much of a future. As shown above Republicans have little desire to help that baby succeed. Instead they are more concerned with the exploitation of that child’s life.
The opposition to abortion has also added exploitation of religion to the Republican playbook. In so doing they also intertwined religion and government which has always been an explosive combination.
As if having little care for the individual babies after they are born isn’t bad enough, their disdain for these youngsters is grandly illustrated by Republicans drive to make a profit for today on such items as greenhouse gas causing products such as oil and coal with little regard to the consequences to the planet that children of today will have to try to survive in.
In the same vein is the glorification of the gun as the solver of problems instead of addressing guns as the problems they are. Instead of addressing the issue, Republicans once again divide the country to make profits today and sacrifice the safety of our children for those profits.
Morality does not come from religion nor does it come from any god or gods. Morality is probably best summed up in what most of us know as the golden rule. That is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Comparing the actual actions of the Republican Party to the simplicity of the golden rule one can see that in almost all aspects of morality, Republicans not only fall short but are often in direct opposition to morality.
So when their failings are made public, they very often turn to their favorite defense. That is to blame their failings on someone else. Usually a Democrat. Just like Roy Moore did this week by claiming he was the victim and his sexual harassment problems were caused by the then teen age girls. Or how Kim Reynolds claimed her failings as governor are being caused by “unhinged liberals” out to get her.
One of the other major claims that Republicans throw out all the time is that of personal responsibility. I can’t remember the last time I heard a Republican take responsibility for anything. So along with the humongous lack of morality in their party, there is also a total lack of responsibility on their part.
November 16, 2017
The 
