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A Letter to the Republican National Committee Washington DC
I received a survey from the RNC. Although I am no longer a Republican, I could not resist commenting. The following is my letter.
4/2/2006 Greetings,
After fighting for the Confederacy my great grandfather became a Democrat. My grandfather, my father and I were all Democrats as well. Because of President Jimmy Carter’s irrational defense cuts while I was serving my country in the USAF I was the first in my family to become a Republican. The anti-military attitude prevalent within the Democratic Party continues to this day and I will never again be a Democrat, but 2005 may have been the last year that I voted Republican. Your 2006 Census did not address many of the issues that trouble me about America, the Republicans and the Democrats. Here are a few of those issues…
· Congressional meddling with the Constitution and allowing the Supreme Court and other federal judges to legislate from the bench has made a mockery of our Constitution. For instance, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” does not mean “separation of church and state”. If that were so, our forefathers would not have invoked God’s name in every important document and in every aspect of the establishment of our Republic. America is so far from the basic precepts of Constitutional law and the foundation of our Republic intended by the framers of the Constitution that we may never undo the damage - even if Congress actually cared enough to try. · The American Drug War is a failure. Federal Mandatory Minimum Sentences and federal drug prosecutions based on conspiracy theories have filled prisons with drug users and petty drug dealers and done nothing to stop the escalation of illegal drug use or illegal drug trafficking in the US. The government continues to demonize marijuana, mislabeling it the gateway drug and one of the most dangerous drugs in America despite the fact that tobacco and alcohol have lead more people to hard drug use and/or death than any other drugs in history. · Congress denies medical marijuana to cancer patients because, in the words of one senator, “Allowing medical marijuana use might send the wrong message.” Yet a doctor may prescribe addictive and deadly drugs like morphine and oxycodone to cancer patients with impunity. And that is the right message? The CDC has yet to record even one death from a marijuana overdose and its benefits to cancer patients are well known. The senator need not worry, America got the message loud and clear; Congress cares about the pharmaceutical companies and doesn’t give a damn about people suffering from cancer. · The Guest Worker Plan for illegal aliens is a bad idea. It might as well be called “The Guest Slave Plan”. Unscrupulous employers will continue to take advantage of foreign workers. America has always needed to maintain strict control of immigration but congress has allowed illegal aliens to flood into the US for years. With an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the US we are now paying a dear price for that negligence and the price may increase considerably when the terrorist cells that were part of that illegal alien flood become active. US borders must be sealed now and permanently. My Irish ancestors immigrated to the US legally. As far as I know, that method of immigration is still in force and it is still a violation of federal law for a foreigner to live in the US without permission. Every illegal immigrant in the US needs to be found, arrested and given a choice, either take the proper steps to apply and become a taxpaying American citizen or be deported. · Creating the Department of Homeland Security was absolutely unnecessary. It was simply a post-9/11 knee jerk reaction of bureaucrats and politicians who do not know how to manage or lead our nation. America has intelligence agencies and a military that is charged with keeping our homeland secure. If the intelligence agencies had done their collective jobs the attacks on 9/11 would never have occurred. Congress has played politics with US intelligence agencies for years, positioning them for failure and finally allowing them to fail. A perfect example is ordering the US Army intelligence unit Able Danger to destroy the 2.5 terabytes of data collected on Al Qaeda and other terrorists before the FBI even saw it. · Enacting the Patriot Act is an affront to the freedoms established by our Constitution. In the former USSR it would have been called the Comrade Act. In Red China, it would be called the Citizen Act. Usurping legal rights in the name of protecting the fatherland (homeland) is how the Nazi Party ruled Germany. Those in favor of the Patriot Act dismiss these comparisons as nonsense, but the point is well proven every day in every commercial airport in the US where American citizens are considered guilty and treated as potential terrorists until they prove to TSA personnel they are not terrorists. And to add insult to injury men of Middle Eastern dissent are ignored while American business travelers are detained and scrutinized, babies are searched and fingernail clippers carried by old ladies are identified as weapons and confiscated. America can be protected from terrorism without taking away our Constitutional rights. Surrendering those basic rights weakens America and strengthens governmental control over its citizens. But then, Congress knew that before the Patriot Act was enacted. Consequently, we see where this could eventually lead and there is no return once that path has been taken.
©2006 James A Graves, Jr. |