They are the nanny state party, regulating our bedrooms, our bodies, and our individual freedoms. We are jailed for indebtedness (debtor's prison), with judges issuing criminal contempt of court sentences for our inability to satisfy payment of court costs and jail costs and collection agency demands.
The GOP is the party of freedom. Freedom to go without health care, the freedom for medical bankruptcies, freedom from dental, vision and hearing care, the freedom to die.
Whenever I hear freedom and flexibility by radical conservatives, I hear the subtext of freedom from accountability, oversight, safety standards, wage minimums, competency, integrity, and legality.
The freedom to do without, as in freedom for us to be without living wages, without health care, without discrimination protections, without a safe retirement income, without clean air and water and soil, without justice and legal rights and legal protections, without protection from disenfranchisement and gerrymandering, without the freedom to join a union or to unionize, without freedom from religious intolerance and religion-based discrimination.
Republicans label us as lazy or undeserving or unworthy or morally corrupt just because of low income or wealth. If people are not paid well enough to go without government assistance, then that is not a person on welfare, it is corporate welfare. It is the reliance of companies on public (taxpayer) assistance for their underpaid workers. Have these radical conservatives heard of the concept of the wealthy paying their fair share? Have they heard of Social Responsibility? Not everyone wants to be or can be a CEO or manager or owner of a business. Some people just want fair wages.
Republicans are the party of laws written by corporations and industries for their own benefit, on both the state and federal level. The GOP is the party of free trade rather than fair trade. They worship profit, striving for returns on investments of at least 15% annually while giving people who do the actual work little or no increase in wages or benefits.
These radicals worship health care for profit, letting health insurance companies cut benefits and raise premiums and deductibles. US companies with more than 20 employees are saddled with health insurance costs (an expense to be minimized, impacting workers) while foreign companies benefit from their government's universal health care. If a worker is part-time or works for a smaller company, there is no insurance benefit.
The GOP cut in half taxes on companies and the wealthy, and now insist on cutting any social programs because of revenue shortfalls, debt and deficits. They lie, cheat, steal, administer draconian and unfair justice. They allow killings with impunity with Stand Your Ground laws, impunity for "peace" officers' slaughter of people of color, and they refuse to enact common-sense restrictions on weapons used in massacres.
The GOP perpetrates lies about Social Security, claiming that it is the biggest federal expense, that it is in the red, and that they must raise retirement ages and cut benefits to save our retirement. No mention is made of raising the cap on payroll taxes (currently $128,400, income over that is not subject to these taxes) so that the wealthy would pay more than a minuscule percentage of their income.
There is no talk about making simple adjustments to the payroll tax rates. No mention is made that Social Security is not even part of the federal budget, that it is separate by law with its own revenue stream. Nothing is said about it being fully funded until 2034 (after which it is 80% funded through 2092) and has a $2.8 trillion Trust Fund consisting of U.S. Treasury Bonds.
Those bonds are the pesky paper IOUs which give rise to arguments that Congress stole our retirement. Bonds earn interest and are how our government funds the $20-plus trillion National Debt; they are not instruments of theft. Social Security benefit cuts or raises in retirement ages do not change the federal budget or the National Debt by one penny.
We are subject to theft of cash and property seized for "evidence" which is rarely returned even if charges are dropped or no charges are filed. We are arrested, jailed, and incarcerated because a "specially trained" police officer determined we were intoxicated even without any physical evidence.
We are denied the ability and the right to institute or join class action lawsuits because of forced inequitable arbitration clauses. We are forced to pay a non-refundable 10% of bail if we cannot afford to come up with the whole amount. If we cannot pay that 10%, we are given pre-trial incarceration. We are then housed in jail or in tent cities with convicted offenders. We are treated the same as those already convicted, and we are treated with little concern for medical needs.
These radical conservatives have a funny idea of what Jesus stood for.
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