was thinking about becoming a Republican the other day.

No, really, I was! Ya know, the money’s good. And you don’t have to share. And you don’t really have to care about the impact of what you do, or what people think of you. Rich, selfish, carefree. That’s not such a bad life, is it?

Yeah, I was really considering it. But then I realized that in so many ways, I’m not really cut out for it.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that people would know that I thought George W. Bush was cool.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I really don’t feel comfortable demanding that my underclass ‘volunteer’ military fight wars that I myself would refuse to fight.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I just don’t need another expensive car as much as poor kids need healthcare.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the ideas of the Constitution, like limited presidential power.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the ideas of the Constitution, like separation of church and state.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the ideas of the Constitution, like freedom from government search and seizure without probable cause and a judicial warrant.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the ideas of the Constitution, like Congress being the lawmaking and oversight branch.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t really think it’s such a great idea to bungle everything in sight, like Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Katrina, and more.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not comfortable with just about the entire world hating me.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not sexually twisted enough.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not completely freaked out about how sexually twisted I am, if I was sexually twisted (which I’m not).

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not so freaked out about how sexually twisted I am, if I was sexually twisted (which I’m not), that I need to wreck the lives of other people by politically demonizing them for their ‘deviant’ sexual preferences and practices.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not frightened of women.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t hate Hillary Clinton. Okay, well, actually I do kinda hate her, but it’s not a foam-at-the-mouth kind of hate, and it’s because of her embarrassingly lame policy positions, not because she happens to combine having power with having a vagina.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not insecure enough about myself that I need to stomp on brown people.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that Pat Tillman’s family would probably kill me for it, and how could I blame them?

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that my own children would probably kill me for it, when they get the tax bill our generation is leaving them.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not comfortable with the idea that my country and my government have become giant cash cows to be milked dry by plutocrats.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’m not nearly corrupt enough.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I have a word to describe people like Bush, Cheney, DeLay, Scalia, Libby, Rove, Wolfowitz, Gonzales and the rest, and it isn’t ‘admiration’.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t really want to wake up in the middle of the night with the screams of mangled Iraqi children ringing in my ears.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in making decisions on the basis of scientific evidence, not on the basis of some televangelist scam-artist’s interpretation of texts written by unknown authors and cobbled together thousands of years ago by equally unknown text cobblers.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I find incessant, blatant and pathological lying really depressing.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized I’d have to spend most of the rest of my life apologizing to Terri Schiavo’s family.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t subscribe to the notion that the planet we live on is just one big coal seam to be strip-mined and left like an open scar once its monetary value has been depleted.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t think it’s a real good idea to refer to our centuries-long allies as “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” just because they refuse to follow us over a cliff into a war they’re smart enough to see is insane folly.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that, ridiculously enough, I actually do think the Vice Presidency is part of the executive branch.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that war-avoiding chicken-hawks who mock and degrade actual war heroes in order to win elections are disgusting beyond the words available in my unabridged dictionary.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that hiding behind national security to cover-up corruption and Constitution slashing is not something I particularly admire.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that using the Justice Department to prosecute political opponents and deny suffrage to people on the basis of race isn’t my definition of ‘justice’.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t like the idea of people like **** Cheney telling me which sexual orientation is okay, but applying different rules to their own daughters (and, of course, themselves).

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that arrogance is not very pretty.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that stupidity is even less pretty.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that arrogant stupidity is the least pretty of all.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that polarizing the country in order to win elections, especially after a major national crisis, is a shameful thing to do.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I actually believe in the rule of law, and that it should be applied to all, not just us working stiffs.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t want to be even remotely associated with the guy who is without doubt the absolute worst president in over 200 years of American history.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I’d have to explain to rightfully enraged future generations how my party blocked any solution to the global warming that is wrecking the planet.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that, forty years later, I’m not running around still angry about the Sixties. In fact, I rather liked the Sixties.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I want to hurl when I think about Halliburton raking in over $20 billion from no-bid (and apparently also no-work) contracts, while American troops still don’t have sufficient armor, all while my would-be party constantly hides its broken policies behind the welfare of the troops. As if they actually gave a damn.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that I don’t want anything to do with a political party that stood by watching while a major American city drowned.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that Brownie really didn’t do a heckuva job, after all. And neither did Bushie, ****ey, Rummy, Ashcrofty, Albertoey, Powelly or Ricey.

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then – above all – I realized how much I utterly despise hypocrisy.

So, uh, now that I think about it, I guess you guys can keep your Grand Old Party, after all.

The truth is, I don’t see anything particularly Grand about it, anyhow.

Just Old.

Like Caligula, Genghis Khan and Torquemada.


http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/I_Was_Thinking_About_Becoming_A_Republican.html

I was thinking about becoming a Republican, but then I realized that arrogant stupidity is the least pretty of all.