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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2007-02-06

Why I Am a Republican, part II

In last night's post, I gave some basic history of my life in an effort to provide a basis for understanding the underpinnings of my belief system. I left off at about the point my first child was born.

Which, if you've never had children, changes the world in pretty dramatic ways--especially if that child is a girl.

I have a friend who used to joke that he never, ever, used to cry at anything, especially movies! Fried Green Tomatoes? nothing. Forever Young? blank. Rudy? maybe, but not likely. After his son was born? still nothing, though Rudy and Field of Dreams might inspire a little tear. But THEN he had girls. After that, Teminator was a full box of Kleenex experience.

I suppose he exaggerates, but not by a whole lot. Being responsible for a little girl is a life-altering experience for a man--every boy is viewed with, at best, suspicion, and for every danger you hear about on the evening news, there is an imaginary scenario by which your child is a victim, and you have a duty to think through a proper response which would keep your child safe.

This, it must be said, is also about the same time that two cowards opened fire in a local high school and killed 12 other students and one teacher before taking their own lives. Of course, picturing my own child in that situation, I would have wanted the police to move in quickly, identify the shooters, and SHOOT FIRST . . .ask questions later.

This is about the point in my life that all the basic liberal tripe about "understanding" and
"victims of society" started ringing most hollow. After six years as a teacher, and now a father, it occurred to me that most of the problems in society have, at their core, not a "lack of understanding and compassion", but a lack of discipline and consequences.

And as I looked across the political spectrum, there was a clear difference between the two parties on this point--and not just on the issue of crime. Republicans wanted actions and enforceable/enforced consequences for transgressions, Democrats seemed to want therapy. Republicans wanted serial, violent pedophiles put behind bars permanently with, perhaps, surgical . . .um, correction; Democrats wanted same pedophiles in "interventions" where they could gradually be put back into general society.

Republicans wanted al-Qaeda bombed into oblivion after WTC I and the East African Embassy bombings; Democrats wanted an indictment, and an "engagement" with Islamic extremists.

And realizing that fundamental difference between the two parties was very important to defining why I am a Republican today.

Tomorrow, . . .the 2000 election.

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Posted by: Michael / 2/06/2007 11:58:00 PM

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