When lobbyists are legislated OUT of Congress -- and this is something Barack Obama has always supported, although his actual track record is now less than perfect -- then we can begin to talk about Representative Government and "values." THEN and only then will I personally feel it's okay to push this whole "patriotism" agenda that the GOP trots out all the time.
Because corporate America and the whole power of the lobbying establishment is anything BUT the America I believe in and, to me, anything BUT something which can be supported with patriotic appeals. And I personally feel VERY patriotic. I love America, and I love Americans, but this is not the sort of representative government I can believe in.
The concentration of wealth and the hegemony of "influence" in American society has been something which has been ongoing, something legislated BY our so-called Representatives, and was mainly something which occurred beginning with Reagan and which was accomplished mainly by the GOP. (And Clinton doesn't get off scot-free here, either.) So they really represent ordinary, Christian Americans, those really are the values they're really behind?(sarcasm).
Liberals see the whole GOP agenda as UN-Christian and the whole family values campaign as a false, hypocritical TOOL to ensnare the loyalty of a trusting, politically naive Christian America. Personally I almost sneer when I even HEAR the term "family values" spouted from the mouth of some Republican. What particularly gets to me is the sheer hypocrisy involved.
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