September 22, 2011

There was a time when Democrats
stood for peace and civil liberties. Some Democrats still hold to those
principles, but they face a dilemma. Their standard bearer, President Barack
Obama, is continuing the wars without end and the destruction of
constitutionally guaranteed liberties policies of his predecessor, George Bush.

So what is a principled
Democrat to do? Robin Koerner, in a piece written in The Huffington Post, says  Democrats should, for one year, switch their registration to Republican
so they can vote for Ron Paul in state primaries.

The piece, “If You Love Peace,
Become a “Blue Republican” (Just for a Year), can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-koerner/blue-republican_b_886650.html?page=1

It’s not that Koerner, the
publisher of WatchingAmerica.com, thinks the Texas Republican is a panacea for
the country’s ills. Indeed, he says explicitly that such is not the case. He
then continued: “Rather, it is to recognize simply that the one
potential presidential candidate who wishes to stop killing innocent people in
foreign wars and stop transferring the wealth of poor and working Americans to
the corporate elites happens to be — this time around — a Republican.”

When Americans voted for Barack
Obama in 2008, Koerner said, they were counting on the promised “Hope” and
“Change” with regard to four specifics. They wanted an end to wars against
foreign countries that were no threat to the U.S.; an end to the federal
government favoring well-connected businesses — such as Halliburton; an end
to the government “riding roughshod over the liberties of private individuals
who are not suspected of crime (The Patriot Act); and ending the massive
federal apparatus to carry out such intrusions on innocent Americans in what is
becoming a police state (e.g. domestic wiretapping, TSA etc. ).”

What they got, however, was
more Bush. To vote for another four years of Obama, Koerner said: “you better
have a moral justification that is SO good that it is, a) worth killing
innocent people who don’t threaten you, b) transferring wealth to the rich and
well connected, and c) the complete suspension of your right to privacy and
such basic rights as protecting your child from being touched by a government
official with the full force of the law behind him as he just follows his
orders.”

Democrats who vote for Obama in
2012 should expect no change.

Koerner’s solution is to have
Democrats become “Blue Republicans.” They should become Republicans for one
year to vote for Paul in the primaries since Paul has shown commitment to
principles of “peace, civil rights and a government that treats people
equally.”

He admonishes those Democrats
who intend to vote for Mr. Obama in 2012:

“[D]on’t you dare pretend that
you are motivated primarily by peace, civil rights or a government that treats
people equally.”

 Koerner said of Paul, “[He] has been
standing up for these principles quietly for half a lifetime, [that he] happens
to be a member of the Republican Party is a lot less important than the
principles that we should be voting on.”

He said the reason to vote for
Paul in the primaries is that the major hurdle he faces is not that he can’t
win the presidency, rather it’s that Republicans won’t nominate him…not without
a push from Democrats.

If the Democratic Party was loyal to the principles of peace and civil liberties, and the Republican Party was consistent with its professed principle of free markets, the country wouldn’t be in the bad state it is now.