From Dick Cheney, courtesy CNN Politics:
"This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas ... what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and constitutional principles.
You know, when you add all those things up, the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy," Cheney also said. "I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most of us aren’t. Most Republicans have a pretty good idea of values, and aren’t eager to have someone come along and say, 'Well, the only way you can win is if you start to act more like a Democrat.'"
And here's a reiteration of what some of these values are:
• Invasion of privacy when it pleases us
• Constant campaigns of fear to keep the masses controllable
• Free enterprise that benefits the top 1% at the detriment of everyone else
• Religious fringe/narrow minded philosophies (climate change a myth, creationism not)
• Wars based primarily on corporate interests and fed to us as patriotic necessity
Please don't hesitate to add to this, Kos audience. It hardly ends with this small sampling. The point, however, is not lost. Cheney's statement is a false representation of our country and the former republican party for that matter. In fact, it's the kind of things a potential dictator might offer.
Our government is built on checks and balances not because the country believes in an extreme philosophy but due to the opposite; we are a moderate nation. Take a few people who think black and a few who think white and mix them together. What do you get?
The comforting thing about democrats (and also the most frustrating thing in terms of passing policy into law) is that they understand this inherently. In fact, democratic politicians can very rare agree on issues that are part of their party's platform because there is no herd mentality in the party. Many consider themselves individual thinkers, others as conservatives (blue dogs) and some as radicals. In the end, we have ONE party that represents America.
The republicans, on the other hand, have veered off into Gattaca-ville. They believe their platform promotes freedom and individuality but their too blind to see the truth - situations like Teri Schaivo, phone-tapping, torture approval methods and pre-emptive wars have, until the last 10 years, been a fringe mentality. Thanks to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their Nazi-like followers this kind of thinking about what a democracy is has been pushed into the mainstream. Granted, much of it was pushed through the gauze of fear (mushroom clouds, alert levels, enemies within), but thank God America finally came to their senses.
And that brings us to Cheney. More than anything said before, this statement above proves beyond a doubt that these people never had any intention of working with the rest of us. They maintained their fringe mentality and always intended to shove it down our throats whether we liked it or not. Lets face it, if we DIDN'T like it, we were branded as traitors. As long as we did, we would cheer for the team and become blindly complacent to corruption (Halliburton), laziness (Katrina) and a lack of oversight and enforcement of laws (mortgage industry) that has undone our reputation and the world's economy.