July 9, 2013 by David K. Sutton
Republicans Won’t Tell You, But They Believe Government Is Working Fine
Congress with low approval? Americans increasingly disillusioned by large institutions like government? — This is a wet dream for Republicans, and a cruel reality for the poor and disenfranchised.
Hey Republicans, when you say government is the problem, what do you do when you are elected to office? — Do you work tirelessly to improve the efficiency of government services? Or do you instead underfund vital services, obstruct, stamp your feet, and well, basically act like belligerent and ungrateful assholes nearly 100% percent of the time?
And to my liberal friends, next time you are scratching your head, wondering how Republicans can do things like cut food stamps, cut unemployment, and show incredible disdain and a general lack of regard for the well-being of fellow Americans, you just have to say these three words and it suddenly makes perfect sense — Republicans are assholes.
If you are a Republican and you worship at the altar of Ronald Reagan, then you believe government is the problem. Government is evil. Government serves no valuable purpose except national security. And if you do believe these things, tell me what your incentive is to improve services and make government work? Wouldn’t doing so conflict with your narrative, your ideology, and your idol, President Reagan?
This is why I believe there is a fundamental conflict of interest with the ideology of the modern Republican Party and honest governance. GOP office holders cannot be above-board in their governing practices when they believe the institution they are working for (yes, they are supposed to be working for it and ultimately us) is unworthy of genuine and honorable service. If you believe the services provided by your employer are unnecessary, what incentive do you have to make sure those services are delivered prompt and efficiently, particularly if your job performance is directly tied to how much you can fuck shit up? If you then believe your own hard-earned dollars are funneling into said service, you might even try your best to disrupt the cashflow for that service. Of course that might be fine if you were right, but what if your ideology does not distinguish efficient services from inefficient services? What if instead of using a surgical scalpel to fix inefficient programs you instead use a bulldozer, hoping to knock the whole thing to the ground? — This is the preferred tactic of the modern Republican Party.
Whether they are blocking executive nominees because they disagree with the position itself (and not the nominee), or they are making blatant attempts to stymie government services, knowing that millions of Americans will suffer because of it, the modern Republican Party has no conscience. It has no heart. It doesn’t care about the disenfranchised. It only cares about its own agenda, as articulated by Grover Norquist when he said, “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” And if a few million Americans drown in the bathtub as well, that’s the price we pay on our way to a government that is good at one thing — vaginal probing.
