One More on Politics, then I'll Shut the Heck Up

Someone wrote on Facebook that the Democrats and Republicans are equally bad, that both groups are two heads of the same snake. I'll say that when it comes to world power and such that may well be, but in everyday life, I think that's not accurate at all. This is what I wrote:


J: I respectfully disagree. I have no problem holding the Democrats' feet to the fire, and I've railed against some things Obama did and certainly railed a lot at Bill Clinton, particularly with his drug war "let's imprison everyone" shit and his insane General McCaffrey drug czar who thought kids could melt down hemp shirts in alcohol to make marijuana flowers. But I do not think the leaders of their respective parties are at all equally rotten. Take simple things like Social Security and Medicare. We all pay into them. We get our return. It works. So the Republicans want to privatize them. The Democrats say do not touch those programs. The Democrats are better on that one. The Republicans want to defund Planned Parenthood because they offer abortions. But 1) not a single penny of public money goes to those abortions, by law; and 2) the Republicans care about the fetus but not a human baby for one instant, and they prove that over and over by tearing at the safety nets a lot of those babies and their moms depend on. The Democrats are better on that. The Republicans were on record, over and over, that the Keystone pipeline would bring in 250,000 jobs when they knew that was a lie. There were 40 permanent jobs to be had, a couple of thousand jobs laying the Chinese pipe that TransCanada had ordered, jobs that would have lasted a few months. And the Tar Sands were previously sold to China and elsewhere and would pass through Port Arthur, a free port that would collect no taxes whatsoever. The Democrats stopped that. They were better. The Democrats want to cap payday loan interest that holds people down. The Republicans fight to keep those rates as high as people want. The Democrats are better. The Republicans fight against equal rights for women, LGBTQ people, and minorities. The Democrats fight for them. The Democrats are better. The Republicans fight to kill unions and refuse to raise minimum wages. They are wrong on both counts and the Democrats are better on those counts. These are just a few of the basic social issues which make peoples lives better or worse, and the Republican platform in recent decades has always been to make people suffer more. So yes, hold the Dem feet to the fire on their bullshit, but it's not an equal amount of bullshit at all.