Open Letter to the GOP - Liberty and Leadership

The Republican Party is off track.

America stands for freedom, justice and representative government, but our party has betrayed both freedom and justice by failing to prosecute rapists and torturers in Iraq and those who enabled them. These people who failed to uphold United States values of freedom and human dignity shame us all. Coercion and torture like water boarding have destroyed our reputation as a centre of civilization and arguing that this is not so makes us appear to be deluded or liars. Those whose children are in public schools, homosexuals, and homosexual family members, agnostics, atheists and many with non-fundamentalist religious views were excluded from our party. Now those who believe in human rights are as well? This is insanity.

Our scepticism of government and failure to govern responsibly (or even to budget effectively) have castrated Republican arguments that it is the party of small government and fiscal responsibility. No great portions of government were outsourced, no government departments were closed. For energy independence no nuclear plants were put into service, no great hydro power projects were begun. Even the Yucca mountain disposal site was not opened.

While we were in power we handled Russia (our foreign policy forte) poorly and did not achieve any important progress in China or Iran. No progress was made in Palestinian-Israeli relations. Americas science leadership continued to decline. Massive social inequalities and concentration of vast wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer Americans continues to occur, while social upward mobility has begun to break down. Our republic can not survive if gigantic social inequalities are tolerated intergenerationally. The drug war continued to rage while the black family continued its disintegration.

The attack on science by religious elements in the party in evolution and the environment undermined our claim to be a prty of intelligent and rational people. Our support of the death penalty and opposition to abortion were contradictory and morally indefensible. Our failure to regulate the excesses of the executive branch were damning. Knee jerk reactions to gays and minority groups combined with uptight small mindedness have marked us a party of hypocritical busybodies. Republicans must choose freedom, not paternalism. Republicans must choose hope and fortitude not fear and force. Republicans must be the party of Lincoln and Reagan, truly a party of American Americans. If you can recite the pledge and agree to the ethos of America - liberty, representative government and free enterprise, the party should welcome you with open arms. We must be moral if we hope to encourage others. We must participate in government if we hope to govern. America has never been fond of obstructionism or hypocrisy, but has always favoured bold forthright leadership.

We must choose liberty so that we may achieve leadership.