Power and Absolute Power – What Concerns Me Most

During the last forty years, I transitioned from a Young Republican during the Vietnam War to a moderate-to-liberal independent during a time of increasing corruption in the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. In both cases, I had/have a need to work against the concentration of power, but especially now.

Back before the South went Republican, it was the conservative Democrats that ran Texas. So, I became a YR to work against those in power. Now it’s the conservative Republicans that not only control Texas, but soon, will control all three branches of the federal government. So, I started this blog.

Neither political extreme is good for Texas or the country, but the extreme we are headed for this time is a place our founding fathers knew well. They lived in an extreme environment of theocracies and took extreme action to separate the new world from that world. So, what has changed to bring us back so close to where ‘we’ started?

It used to be that both parties had a mix of liberal and conservative members and that mix kept both parties more or less on an even keel and able to work together. Forty years ago, the Republicans had Nelson Rockefellor on the left and Barry Goldwater on the right. The Democrats had Eugene McCarthy on the left and Boll weevils on the right. By 1980 that had changed. Republican became synonymous to conservative and Democrat meant liberal – for the most part. But what is taking us back to the really good ole’ days is that the Republican conservatives are being controlled by the evangelical/fundamentalist Christians who want to replace our democracy with a theocracy.