Republicans don't care much for democracy. Talk about our democratic government and they will be quick to assert that we do not live in a Democracy – we live in a Republic. They have even made it a policy never to mention the Democratic Party or the Democratic Congress – it is the Democrat party, it is a Democrat Congress. It sounds weird but suddenly every Republican is told to mangle the language so people don't associate Democrats with Democracy.
But it is more than semantics, it is their actions that are most instructive. As soon as the Republicans took over most of the state houses and the House of Representatives they went about making it more difficult for people to vote. They were fortunate that the 10 year re-districting of Congress occurred right after they won the vast majority of House seats. To consolidate their wins they gerrymandered the districts, crowding the Democratic leaning voters into fewer districts and maximizing the Republican votes. They reapportioned the districts so that if the public vote was evenly split 50/50 that the Republicans would win 62% -77% of the House seats.
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusive...The next priority of the Republicans was to disenfranchise minorities, seniors and students with a plethora of voter ID laws, even though there is absolutely no evidence that there was any cheating. Is it just a coincidence that the 5 million people who would loose their votes when the voter ID laws go into effect are almost all Democratic constituencies?
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/many-5-...Another high priority once the Republicans took over, was to tell women that they are not competent enough to make informed decisions about their own bodies or their own health. They want to eliminate Planned Parenthood the main source for health care for poor women, they want to restrict access to birth control so the women will be forced to remain barefoot and pregnant. They have passed laws forcing doctors to tell women lies and forcing women to have unnecessary trans vaginal ultrasounds and then to have to pay for that outrage. The white males in Congress know what is best for the women of this country.
http://pol.moveon.org/waronwomen/The most egregious example of the war on Democracy is what the Republicans have done in Michigan. They have enacted the Emergency Manager Law which allows the Governor to appoint someone that can take over all functions in a city and disband all elected officials. Is it a coincidence that the cities that have lost their democratic privileges all happen to be majority black cities? In fact the emergency manager law would disenfranchise 50% of the blacks in the state. A handful of Republican cronies with no prior training or expertise are deemed more knowledgeable than millions of citizens.
http://eclectablog.com/2011/12/66-electe...Of course everyone got pissed off. People tend to resent their liberties and democratic privileges being taken away from them. They demand the right to self governance just as our forefathers did when they rebelled against the English tyrant. The people of Michigan have an initiative process and if enough people sign a petition they should be allowed to put a stop to the emergency manager law and put it up for a state vote.
The citizens of Michigan submitted 40,000 more signatures than was required to get the question on the ballot, but the Republicans on the Board of Canvassers denied the petition because, - (are you ready for this?) – Because the font in the petition was too small!!
http://www.politicususa.com/synder-michi...So the biggest question is, are the Republicans disenfranchising mostly minority voters because these minorities mostly vote for Democrats, or are they simply trying to disenfranchise all Democrats? The question can also be asked about the President. Do the Republicans hate him so viscerally simply because he is a Democrat, even though he is competent, doing a good conservative job despite the Republican obstructionism and enacting mostly Republican policies, or is it because they can't stand the fact that their commander in chief, their ultimate boss, the one in charge of running the country, is black?
There are people all over the South who are living in abysmal conditions in extreme poverty, running the country creates cognitive dissonance. They consider themselves better than ANY black man, so how can a black man be president? That is why most conservatives in the South don't recognize President Obama as legitimate and that is why all of the bizarre theories that he is really Kenyan and a Muslim are believed by so many. It is racism.
and the only reason that they are not protesting and demanding better conditions, is that they say to themselves at least I'm a step up from the blacks. The fact that a black man is