How ironic. I grew up a Republican. And the party left me. It's as if both party's did a 180.
And I agree totally, with all due respect to our colleague TheDemSocialist, that socialism is not the way to go. On the surface, it is a noble concept. However, the nature of mankind is to take advantage thus rendering all-out socialism a futile endeavor spawning laziness and counter-production.
I take the approach that, if an able bodied person is capable of working, but choose not to, then they don't eat. But I would rather see my tax dollars go to the downtrodden, the sick, the veteran, the elderly, education and infrastructure before sending it overseas in foreign aid and supporting unnecessary wars to profit the elitist corporate welfare rats, as today's republican's seem to prefer. Socialism has been tried, and has failed, too many time's in mankind's history, to even consider it being a successful ideology. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
This was the Republican Party I used to support:
The Republican Party was formed 100 years ago to preserve the Nation's devotion to these ideals.
On its Centennial, the Republican Party again calls to the minds of all Americans the great truth first spoken by Abraham Lincoln: "The legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. But in all that people can individually do as well for themselves, Government ought not to interfere."
Our great President Dwight D. Eisenhower has counseled us further: "In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people's money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative." Republican Party Platforms: Republican Party Platform of 1956
The Republican Party no longer stands for these ideals. Therefore, I no longer stand with the Republican Party.