After the break, a sampling of email I’ve gotten of late from disaffected Republicans, angry at the GOP’s unfettered lust for power, and it’s quest to control private behavior.

I think you’re right on — there’s basically no power left for the Bush administration to try to assert. In 2004 I was a libertarian leaning conservative (now I’m much more toward libertarian, although I still think going to Afghanistan was the right call, and Iraq was a badly executed good idea), but the bullshit that has been revealed over the past couple of years has given me the biggest case of buyer’s remorse one could expect from politics. I the torture thing was well-known before the 2004 election, but I hardly found that the military tortures people all that shocking. Wrong, unethical, bad PR certainly, but not surprising. Par for the course, really, I think.

The domestic spying, the NSA phone records, Padilla, “let’s arrest journalists”…it’s pathetic, wrong, and amazingly awful for the country. I’m not convinced that a full-on government run by the Democrats would’ve been any better, but gridlock would have let partisan politics at least keep most of the total bollocks in check. USA PATRIOT would still have been in effect, true, so we bankers would still be forced to spy on our customers, but at least maybe the NSA thing would’ve stopped. Of course, Congress seems to think that duly executed search warrants violate their constitutional rights, so I’m not all that optimistic about the future after the fall mid-terms.

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Thank you for a thoughtful item which really hits a point which seems to have been completely drowned out in recent years. I have lived to regret my previous support of the Republican Party once I got a good look at how quickly they were corrupted by power. I will never trust the Democrats (born in 1956 I got a good look at how they handle things). Of course once you give up Coke and Pepsi, what remains?

Let me know when you run; you have my vote.

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Absolutely agree with you. I used to be a Republican until they endorsed the “Nanny State”.

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The left does it because they think people are stupid and should be taken care of by the Govt. I believe the right does it because they want all to share their Christian values. After voting Republican for many years, I just changed to Libertarian because of this very issue.

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I am a conservative Republican, but lately feel abandoned by my party and feel like I should just jump ship and join the libertarians. I guess the only thing stopping me from that is that I don’t believe everything (prostitution, for example) should be legal. Oh yeah, and that little thing we all know to be true: that a vote for a third party is really just a vote for the party you REALLY don’t like. Anyway, thank you for that breath of fresh air.

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Both sides of the political spectrum seem to think we need help thinking anymore, that is not what the American way has ever meant in the past.

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I have always voted predominately Republican. I have watched in dismay as the party of less government and trusting citizens to run their own lives has moved to trying to control morality and behavior. I still think the democrats are more dangerous with the political correctness which sounds too much like Orwell’s thought police to me, but both sides think the way to power is to offer more control over our lives. Why do we accept it?. Perhaps the fictitious government the novel 1984 was right in their belief, “freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, war is peace”.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 28th, 2006 at 8:45 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.