Insanity is...

I am an independent voter. In the past I have voted for republicans or democrats based on their positions on issues that concern me. Frankly I am worn out by the current state of American politics.

Having said that I love this country deeply and I must make a rational decision on which party will preserve this country's heritage. Therefore I will not be voting for any Republicans for the following reasons:

1. They seem more intent on their own personal political agendas and retaining power than on the welfare of this nation. I am always suspicious of power hungry people. Instead of embracing the new president's offer of working in a bipartisan manner—time and time again—they rejected it and became obstructionist in demeanor and tactics, even when their ideas were incorporated into legislation, hoping for his failure so they could say, "I told you so."

2. The Republicans held a monopoly on power for nearly fourteen years. They were handed a 84 billion dollar surplus* at the end of Bill Clinton's presidency and a fairly stable economy. They squandered it. * http://www.factcheck.org/askfactche /during_the_clinton_administration_was_the_federal.html

3.In American history there has never been a pre-emptive war, yet they chose to start one by lying to the American public about their motives, which had nothing to do with American National Security and WMDs, as they claimed. That war in Iraq has consumed nine years nearly, 4,300 American lives, plus 30,000 casualties who will require care into the foreseeable future, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and nearly a trillion dollars—and counting—that are unfunded, the equivalent of 20,000 dollars pre household. Now we are committed to rebuilding the Iraqi nation while our nations drifts into financial chaos.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm

4. They cut the revenue of the government by handing the wealthiest among us an unprecedented tax cut while increasing spending on lavish corporate welfare programs. How do you cut taxes in time of war? You cut food assistance to Americans and education programs for future generations. And label those programs as "entitlements" to generate animosity towards people that need them thus creating a underclass who by inference are leeching the life blood of America.

5. The republicans have precipitated and encouraged a bitter, underhanded and fostered a disingenuous political climate in this country from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove, that has Machiavellian undertones. They have rendered the term "loyal opposition", totally meaningless."

6. They have stacked the Supreme Court with hand picked political ideologues who have undermined the Constitution and tilted it to the far right. Their announced aim was to "shrink the government to such an extent that they could drowned it in a bath tub".

7. They preach that government is the problem, forgetting that the founding fathers although suspicious of any government were also aware that left unchecked powerful private interests would trample the individual human rights that they had fought for. Eisenhower, a republican president warned us about the dangers of allowing the military/industrial complex to become too powerful. e.g. Haliburton

8. They ran huge deficits that weakened this country to such an extent that at the very end of their rein they had to call for a bailout of the American Banking system and turned around and blamed the democrats. They left this country in shambles yet they want to take over again and return to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place, their recent "Contract with America" is a prime example of their intentions.

9. Their party has been highjacked by hate mongering far right radicals who are bought and paid for by corporate powers. They have driven out most moderates and have coalesced around fanatical faction calling themselves the Tea Party.

10. They have undermined the sense of Civic Duty that ever American was taught in my generation, that while we don't like paying taxes we do so for the well being of our country.

11. They deny some groups in our society the human rights that our Constitution sets forth as bedrock and cater to the xenophobic tendencies in us. All the while expressing an undying love for the self same document and insisting on its infallibility as the arbiter of the law. Ignoring the fact or not understanding that the Constitution is the document that protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

12. They have rewritten American history and twisted it to suite they political agendas, e.g. America was founded as a Christian Nation. I am a Christian and in my reading of the Constitution have found no reasonable attempt by the founders to, in any way to incorporate Christianity as the basis for human rights. Their mention of a creator does not make this a Christian Nation, if anything it implies that the founders were Deists who recognized that a higher power made men free from birth, but there is no absolutely no mention of salvation or redemption which is a fundamental theologic argument that distinguishes Christianity from Deists. They go even further by proclaiming this a Christian Nation and then subvert and deny the fundamental rights of select group that are different. Their ability to reason is therefore in my opinion suspect at least.

13. The republicans no longer speak to the aspiration and dreams of this Nation but appeal to the most negative aspects of human nature that divide us rather than unite us.

Please search your memories and consider what the Republicans have done to this country in the fourteen years they had unchecked power, and ask yourself if you you want more of the same? I for one do not and urge you to vote democratic this election and the next. Send them a message that we reject their negativity and mean spirited pronouncements, tell them that this country is better than their short sighted doom and gloom scenarios and policies of scarcity, that we can recover from their cynical and divisive policies.

Commentary: If insanity is to repeat a failed behavior and expect different results, then in the immortal words of that far right intellectual Sarah Palin—I say—'Thanks but no thanks".