Letters: People weary of politics as usual June 5, 2012

Political party conventions, caucuses and similar gatherings of the supposedly like-minded are ostensibly undertaken for a reason.

If that were not the case, why should we expend our resources (both financial as well as time) on such endeavors?

If there is a vote to obtain (caucus), or business to conduct along with further selecting of delegates (convention), then the process should proceed according to rules and protocols that are fair to all participants and clear well in advance.

This past weekend at the state Republican convention in Shreveport, the powers-that-be in the Louisiana GOP failed dismally on all counts.

Clearly disdaining the results of the caucus, it was apparently determined within the upper echelons of the state party apparatus that said results could not be allowed to stand.

Toward that end, rules were changed at the last minute involving quorum requirement, convention chairman (now not to be elected by delegates, but merely assumed by the state party chairman), and committee chairmen (not to be elected by the elected delegates, but instead hand-picked by the state chairman/executive committee).

The duly elected caucus delegates, elected by rank-and-file party members in our state, are bypassed in favor of the despotism of the oligarchy which is the executive committee and party chairman.

Nothing else is to matter. This in essence is an invalidation of the entire process and makes a mockery of all who diligently participated.

This dog and pony show, strictly for public consumption and not really meant to affect anything if it is at odds with the party elitists’ predetermined outcome, should outrage every Republican in our state, as the stench from this whole sordid affair wafts across the nation.

People of all political parties have a visceral reaction to what is fair play, or to what is obviously not.

Republicans rightly decry the current administration in Washington, not only for the results of its policies, but also for its disdain for constitutional limits and restraints on their progressivism, as well as the “we know best” attitude and accompanying condescension.

Then the hierarchy within the Republican Party does likewise to its own constituents.

Citizens are weary of politics-as-usual, and more so of such elitist attitudes in an all-out, no-hold-barred defense of the status quo (statist-quo?).

America is in trouble, and more Americans are coming to realize this, based on the enormous growth in the liberty movement.

Real change is needed, and those who realize this will continue in earnest; we will persist, we will not be silenced, we will not equivocate, and we will be heard.

Mike Thibodeaux

physician

Baton Rouge

Comments

1) Comment by phil - 08/06/2012

Maybe the group that was thrown under the bus by the PARTY is not so bad after all.

2) Comment by InPVille - 07/06/2012

If you can provide the stats, provide them from a source which can be determined to be reputable. Otherwise it all just comes off as self-serving ideological based propaganda. The Democrats would never shut down government because government is their best option to carry out their agenda in the mistaken belief that, while corporations can't be trusted, government is the source of all good. And this is founded on the belief that while past history has proven time and again that governments in the end become corrupt themselves, you are different and it was done by the wrong people. Wrong! The problem is human nature. When have the Democrats EVER threatened to shut down the federal government if they didn't get their way? Funny you should limit it to the federal government. I can think of a recent one at the state level and that isn't the first time it happened.

3) Comment by gravityassist - 07/06/2012

@InPVille: I could give you the stats if I had the time to look them up, but they're off the charts.// Never before in our nation's history has the minority party spent the entire four years of an opponent president's first term expressly stating a determined, conscious will that he be a failure, that he be "a one term president," and plan, plot, scheme, and otherwise devote their use of Congress- not to working FOR the country - but for the sole purpose of obstructing ALL progress in the country, wrecking the country's present AND future in pursuit of their dangerous, scary, lethally selfish political pursuit of power. //The only period in history even remotely similar was during the Gingrich era - the eight years the "vast right-wing conspiracy" worked to undermine Clinton's presidency - a strategy that eventually backfired.//I hope we're about to experience some national dejavu."all over again" (as Yogi Berra might say).//The suggestion that there is an equivalence between Democrats and Republicans at play is disingenuous. When have the Democrats EVER threatened to shut the federal government down if they didn't get their way, or behaved so recklessly that they nearly destroyed our nation's credit rating?

4) Comment by InPVille - 05/06/2012

@gravityassist: "A country (perhaps even a state) is no longer a democracy when one Party refuses to acknowledge they lost, and either changes the rules - or spends the next four years vowing to do nothing but devote themselves to ensuring that the party in power fails (so they can then campaign for re-election on said failure). Are we there yet?" -[**]- Are we there yet? Wake up! We have been there for some a number of years. . . For many election cycles we have had one party taking office after the other party loses favor, then they lose favor and it flips back, and so forth and so on more or less in an endless "To the rear march" loop or "March in place!". If there were enough in the middle, we might get a third party which might find a middle or less destructive road. But it doesn't look like happening and is perhaps a pipe dream anyway.

5) Comment by gravityassist - 05/06/2012

A country (perhaps even a state) is no longer a democracy when one Party refuses to acknowledge they lost, and either changes the rules - or spends the next four years vowing to do nothing but devote themselves to ensuring that the party in power fails (so they can then campaign for re-election on said failure). Are we there yet?

6) Comment by Whatnow - 05/06/2012

So, if you're sneaky, it's better, jobo?

7) Comment by jobo - 05/06/2012

Au contraire, this is quite in keeping with Republican Party philosophy. Or didn't you know they were the party of despotism, plutocracy, and stealing from the poor to pay the rich? (The Democratic Party is guilty of this too, but at least they are less blatant about it.) Why are you so surprised?