Changing registration

A friend who lives in the same Republican-dominated suburb told me the other day he's changed his registration from Democrat to GOP so as to undermine and subvert his new party. I haven't been a Democrat for many years, and spent most of my adult life as a blank -- i.e. not registered in any party -- until this month, when I, too, became a Republican.

Subversion is not my motive. Yet I am no friend to Republican tax policy or waterboarding/rendition/the death penalty. I do not hate railroads or love corporate America. Nor, however, do I follow the liberal line of permanent, speech-policing outrage about mostly imagined racism, sexism, Christianism, theocracy, heterosexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc. I won't spin a party line.

The Republican presidential candidates do not inspire me with confidence, and the New York state party has never inspired anyone. I don't have any special animus against President Obama. But I'm almost certainly going to end up voting Republican, as I have in every presidential election since 1992.

The reason, of course, is abortion (and related issues like embryonic stem cell research). Most of the current GOP presidential candidates are professedly pro-life, but I'm skeptical. Take the two front-runners: Mitt Romney, who was vigorously pro-choice when running for office in Massachusetts, and Rick Perry, who endorsed pro-choice Rudy Giuliani in 2008. But they and the other plausible candidates are a lot more pro-life than Obama, which means I'm going to have to vote for one of them, so I may as well vote in the primary, too.

Comments

[Brian]

I'm sure you mean that they're anti-abortion. Because I don't think any of them are pro-life. There are very few Americans who are truly pro-life.

[Matthew]

Respectfully, I find your pro-life position hypocritical. You can't be pro-life in terms of abortion & support the Death Penalty & Wars of Aggression & advocating the death of people who do not have medical insurance or children who happen to be illegal immigrants. But your vote on a single issue supports all this.

You say you support do not love corporate America or detest the Republican tax policy or their positions on torture. You claim to not support the homophobia directed at people who have made the extraordinary sacrifaces in serving their country. But your vote on a single issue that's not related to this supports such policies.

You claim to be concerned w/ the poor or but their policy proposals not only cut but would defund such programs that often were effected by no fault of their own. Considering you currently live in a community that was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Irene, I would hope you were sympathetic. Yet your vote on a single issue that's not even related to this supports such policies.

Whether you admit to it or not, you'll vote for the GOP no matter what...& they know which gives them a complete blank check to do anything they want. They know, we know, you know you'll just sit there & take it. Yes, you may moan & groan but you're ultimately doing it with a smile.

How a person votes is their perrogative. However, I feel, they forfeit their right to complain if they do not even CONSIDER voting for someone else. They give their votes away instead of making someone earn it. Just don't tell me that you consider alternatives when your past statements & actions illustrate otherwise.