Several months ago, I used this column to list, in a rather flippant fashion, the things about today?s GOP that repel me. But a change of this magnitude really deserves a more serious explanation. Why, after 35 years of active participation in the Republican party, have I formalized this change? Why don?t I just do what so many of my friends do?retain my ?official? party affiliation, but vote mostly Democrat? What pushed me over the edge?
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Levelling the Playing Field
In legal circles these days, there is much talk about tensions between the Establishment and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment.
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Be Very, Very Afraid
November’s election was much more than a triumph for George W. Bush, our inarticulate and one-dimensional President. It was one of those fateful turning points in national history–quite possibly the event that scholars in the future will point to as the beginning of monumental change.
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Either-Or
American public opinion tends to shades of black and white. As a nation, we are uncomfortable with ambiguity. We want to see international conflicts as contests between “good guys” and “bad guys.” We want to pin domestic problems on specific villains.
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Connections
Religious matters are increasingly in the news. There are the controversies over abuse in the Catholic Church, eruptions of European anti-Semitism in the wake of Arab-Israeli violence, and solemn arguments about the nature of Islam in the wake of 9-11, among others. By and large, the American media has treated such events as interruptions of, or departures from, an otherwise secular understanding of the world.
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