Is the Republican Party dead?

Is the Republican Party dead? The one that I knew certainly is. As a 42 year old Hispanic I embraced Ronald Reagan as the Republican Party's greatest champion. It was Ronald Reagan that made the Republican Party the party for average Americans as well as intellectuals, moral conservatives, young and old, whites and minorities. He made us feel proud to be an American first and then to be proud to be a Republican. He brought us the greatest economic expansion in our country's history, not Bill Clinton as he loves to take credit for. Remember there is a lag period before economic policy is felt at every level of the national economy. It wasn't Bill Clinton, it was Ronald Reagan's sound economic policies from his trickle down economics to its strict fiscal responsibility that brought about economic prosperity to the country during the nineties.

In case our current administration forgot, reducing taxes is good policy if government spending is kept in check, reducing taxes and letting government spending run uncontrollably allows for severe budget deficits. Ronald Reagan taught us that. It is very simple mathematics; when our outflows exceed our inflows, we experience losses, deficits. There has never been a greater champion of the free enterprise system than President Reagan. His trickle down economics model was designed to successfully drive our free enterprise system. And he understood that the closer we got to a free enterprise system without government interference the greater the payoff. However, he also understood that being imperfect beings we were incapable of a perfect system so some intervention was needed. By intervention I mean regulation. He understood that the greater the payoff the greedier we would become and therefore the need to have a certain amount of regulation was imperative. This is where George W. Bush and Bill Clinton failed. Both deregulated almost every industry in our country. And what has happened, greed led us to our prodigious economic prostration since the Great Depression. Ironically, our supposed most capitalistic president we have ever had, George W. Bush, has brought us closer to socialism than any other president in our history. We now have 700 billion dollars of state owned enterprises. Why the economics lesson? We need to discern what the Republican Party represented during its most successful era and what it represents today during its most unsuccessful era.

The Republican Party used to stand for fiscal responsibility, smaller government, strong defense, patriotism and moral conservatism, not what it is today, giant government, budget deficits, Christian fanaticism, strong offense and turning on fellow Americans who have even the slightest difference of opinion and calling them traitors, unpatriotic or Anti-American. So who hijacked the Republican Party from its Reagan roots?

Joe Six Pack hijacked the Party, that's who. Less educated Evangelical Christians that have little understanding of the Party's core principles. The ones that listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and believe that Barack Obama will abolish the First Amendment and the Second Amendment and will replace the Bible with the Koran and will only allow schools to teach the Muslim religion and on and on. The ones that failed to pay attention in American Government class in high school when the teacher taught that there are two additional bodies of government that serve to keep the Executive Branch in check. In the event that it wants to abolish the First and Second Amendments. The ones that believe that evolution is false and Earth is only 12,000 years old irregardless of proven scientific fact. What I am getting at is that these silly issues have taken precedence, abandoning the core principles that Ronald Reagan helped the Party re-adhere to, such as small government, fiscal responsibility, strong defense (not offense) and moral conservatism (not radical Evangelical Christianity). And a Party that had room for everyone from Joe Six Pack to the intellectual moderate right to the staunchest conservatism without labeling any segment of its own Party as unpatriotic. This also included tolerance for the left in terms of an America that was made up of the whole political spectrum not just one side because it was far more important to transcend beyond political parties to protect her truest quality, Democracy.

Reaganites please stand up and introduce yourselves so we can turn over the reigns to you and you can make us proud to be Republicans again and to continue on the path that President Ronald Wilson Reagan set out for us as a country and that gave us our greatest economic prosperity in our history. Jose Six Pack go back to drinking cheap beer and repenting during Sunday services.