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I think it's wrong to blame the Republicans for what they are....Judging from your complaints your problem with the Republicans is that they are conservative.

And what are the Republicans, exactly? To an outsider, like me*, the Republican Party stands for the following:-

- Breaking the terms of the American Constitution by imposing a religon (Christianity) on the citizens of the United States of America.

- Keeping the population of the United States ignorant by refusing to teach real science in schools. Instead, they want Creationism taught or Intelligent Design, neither of which stand up to the rigors of scientific method.

- Making the rich richer while impoverishing the working classes. Bush's tax breaks made things easier for the top income earners, who earn money from multiple different income streams, and not for those on the bottom of the heap who only have their wages to live off.

- Putting the rights of companies before the rights of citizens. The Republican Party is perceived to stand for "Big Business" - anything that benefits big business is all right by them - even if it means those corporations don't pay fair levels of tax, enslave their workers and polute the environment around their plants (thus damaging the health and well-being of citizens).

- The Republican Party is perceived to stand for partronage. The equation: George W Bush + Iraq = Large contracts for Halliburton looms large in many European minds, whether it is accurate or not.

- The Republican Party stands for interferring in people's lives (1). It is the Republican Party that wants to limit access to birth control, ban Gay marriage, and outlaw abortion. (Note to the religious right: legalizing gay marriage doesn't make you homosexual. And if God is so offended by homosexuality, why did he create Gay people????)

- The Republican Party stands for interferring in people's lives (2). Bush's Homeland Security legislation tramples all over civil liberties.

- The Republican Party stands for deficit funding. The last three Republican presidents have incurred massive Federal debts, spending far beyond tax receipts. The only Federal Government since the Civil War to pay back Federal debt and balance the budget was Bill Clinton's. Fiscal conservatism is not spending money you don't have.

- the Republican Party stands for hypocracy. Preaching "small government" while increasing the size of Federal bureaucracy and increasing government spending is hypocracy.

- And, finally, the Republican Party stands for enriching the corporations that provide health care in America: the health insurance providers, the HMO's, etc. American health insurance costs have risen at a far higher rate than inflation. In the richest country in the world, people die while waiting to find out if their HMO or health insurance, will cover their medical condition. Even with so-called "good" health insurance, the co-pays can bankrupt you**. And why, in the richest country in the world, are 40 million Americans denied access to health care because they can't afford insurance premiums?

- Pam

* And you can't get further outside the US than where I come from.

** Anecdata: in 2008, my American project director's son was involved in a car accident and hospitalized for about a month. Paul's co-pays were over $100,000 and he paid for the best level of insurance available to him.
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