Reason # 437

I have stated right here in this very blog that No one should vote for a Republican until they start representing America.

This is hard to do, folks, particularly in a place like East Tennessee where all the candidates running for a particular office may be Republicans claiming to be Independants. We even have a candidate for County Mayor who has publicly stated that he is a Republican to one group and publicly claimed he's a Democrat to another. Most politicians waffle but, dang, this guy may set the waffling bar impossibly high for other would be elected officials who plan to waffle their way into office. If you have to deny your political affiliation to a group of people, how can you possibly represent them with honesty?

But wait...what am I doing? Suddenly I'm thinking of politicians in terms of "Honesty"? I may be depressed because Zidane got thrown out of the World Cup, but even in my current state of despair I know better than to mention honesty in the same breath with a Republican...even a pretend one.

So I plan not to vote for any of them nonetheless. But there are problems. Why, for instance, don't any Democrats want to be Register of Deeds? Why is "Trustee" an elected position in the first place? I mean, if we're gonna elect someone, that means they are a politician...Trustee? Politician? Trustee?...Republican?

Am I the only one who sees a contradiction here?

Since this is so hard to do, I have allowed myself one exception this year. I am going to vote for the most Democratic Republican I've ever met. This guy would be GOP through and through, except he introduced a bottle recycling bill in the Tennessee legislature, voted for every environmental bill, and introduced most of them...Actually, his record makes me question whether he's really a Republican. Maybe he's just a real Conservative, unlike what most Republicans have become.

The main reason I won't vote for Republicans is that they have failed, as a party, to defend government "Of the People, By the People, For the People."

"What do the People have to do with Government?" say the Republicans.

Want an example? Here's one that really pisses me off...

The Bush Administration is trying to sell off hundreds of thousands of acres of land that is yours and mine. In some cases, it is land that was bought by private money and donated to the Federal government in order to protect it, in some cases from developers. In Tennessee, George and his buddies want to sell 3000 acres. In order to follow Federal law on these things they have to ask the public what the public think about this. The public, that would be those "People" I mentioned earlier and includes me and should have included YOU, made over 130,000 formal comments about selling public land. Agriculture Undersecretary, Mark Rey, said that out of 130,000 comments from "The People" there were a couple of real Estate agents that thought selling off the "People's" land to real estate developers was a good idea. The rest of the 130,000 comments from "The People" thought this was a bad idea.

So there you have it:

A few land speculators...FOR...

Everybody else in the country, that would be.."the People"....Against!

Bush....FOR....

Everybody else in the world except a few Real estate people...AGAINST!

So there you have it, My Republican friends. Figured it out yet? You guys have made a mess...Now clean it up!

Peace,

Steve