I'm a moonbat.

And proud of it.

You see, the Republican Party and its so-called "conservatives" have devolved to two principles: a) winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. and b) facts are irrelevant, it's only your beliefs that count. And I'm proud that I'm not one of them, and by the demented standards of redstate.org and etc., am thus a "moonbat".

I'm somewhat of a Goldwater small-government Republican. I voted for George H.W. Bush (twice), and voted for Clinton the second time only because I wanted to ensure continued divided government and thus less government (hopefully!). My view of government is that it has its place, but its place is limited to only those things where facts have shown the free market doesn't work, things like, for example, building roads and providing fire protection. If there are other things that we as a society want our government (OUR government, not some foreign imposition, OUR government, that we ourselves vote for and elect) to do, fine, but it should only be done if there is a clear consensus that this is what needs doing. By "clear consensus", I don't mean majority vote. I mean "almost everybody agrees". Such as, "almost everybody agrees that older men should not be having sex with young boys" (i.e. everybody but NAMBLA and Mark Foley agrees with this statement). If you can't get buy-in from virtually everybody, it doesn't need to be done by government, it needs to be done by the smaller groups that want it.

One of the things I most dislike about the current American system is that it is too easy to pass a law. Laws should be things that are hard to pass, that require the agreement of pretty much everybody to pass, because once government is given a power by a law, it rarely gives up that power. The current behavior of the Republicans in power sickens me in that regard. They've managed to expand government more than any President since LBJ, mostly by simply passing laws whenever they feel like it, rather than passing only those laws that pass bipartisan muster. As a result, you get bloated government. As a result, you get the Republicans in Congress ignoring the concerns of the Democrats regarding the course of the war in Iraq and ignoring little facts like the difference between Shia and Sunni that make it hard to find a suitable course for stabilizing Iraq. As a result, you have Osama bin Laden attacking America, and getting away with it, because Bush decided to attack Iraq instead of putting the whole military into Afghanistan and Pakistan to track down and kill the men who attacked America, a strategic mistake that is the equivalent of declaring war upon Mexico because Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. These are facts. But these facts don't count for today's Republicans, because doing all this was what Karl Rove needed to do in order to win elections for Republicans, and in today's Republican Party, only winning counts. Only winning, and belief. By stating belief loudly enough and ignoring those little "fact" things, you win. And winning the only principle -- the *ONLY* principle -- that today's Republican Party has.

If these beliefs make me a "moonbat", fine. Better a "moonbat" than someone without morals, without principles, and without shame. I want a party of principle and small government to be in charge in Washington. That party, unfortunately, is not the Republicans, and will not be as long as winning, not principles, is the most important thing for the Republican Party.

-- Badtux the Conservative Penguin