If you watch, listen or read about politics pretty much all day long I’d say you’re a political junkie. If you really pay attention to politics you find out in no time flat that our two parties are not at all the same. For years I’ve heard people say there is nothing different about the Republicans or the Democrats. You have got to be kidding me. I was raised in a Republican family because my dad owned his own business. Everyone knows for some reason the Republicans are supposed to protect business interests. That may have been true over the years but a change started to occur sometime back.

Don’t get me wrong-- the Republicans still protect business today but it’s big giant business that looks to make fast, huge profits. This should make the average working Republican wonder what this party is doing for them.

The Republican party of today was highjacked by some extreme leaders a while back and no one today can say with a straight face that the two parties are anything alike.  The Republican Party has many great people in it but they have been pushed aside by far right wing forces that are making the Republican Party the party of bigots.

Just watch and listen to many of their leaders today. Check out what Republicans are saying and what guest speakers they have at their CPAC Convention this week. Some examples are the anti-gay groups Family Research Council and Apartheid-nostalgic Youth for Western Civilization.  CPAC is also hosting the “The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity” with Peter Brimelow, the head and founder of VDARE.com.

The Republican Party keeps trying to say they are not racist and I do believe a large part of the party isn’t but they are being pushed aside by the more powerful right wing movement.

It was the election of President Obama that gave us a real eye opening picture of how different the Republicans are from the Democrats. I was or at least I thought I was for many years a Conservative Republican. I always thought a Conservative Republican was all about keeping costs under control. Today the definition of a Conservative Republican takes on a whole new meaning and they hide behind the word God. Many of these Conservative Republicans preach hate today. They cheer about letting people without health insurance die and about execution. They booed a gay soldier who asked a question to Rick Santorum at one debate about gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. When you look at who attends Republican events the audiences seems to be 99% white.

The GOP uses great words like: caring and compassionate, God, family values, American values, religious rights and individual rights. These all sound great in their speeches but they are all used as a smoke screen by Republicans. Actions speak louder than words and by what the Republicans actions have been  around the country they are on a slippery slope to self-destruction.

One reason people used to say there is nothing different between the two parties in America was because they used to reach across the aisles and come to a workable agreement that gave something to each side. This always worked for the American people before. Now we have a group of hard liners in the Republican Party who don’t want any compromise.  Just this week Republican Jim DeMint said, “Compromise works well in this world when you have shared goals. When you have shared goals, you can sit down together. We don’t have shared goals with the Democrats.”

I always thought the goals of our elected officials were to do what’s right for the American people.  If our elected representatives refuse to work with each other because their goals are different we should do away with voting altogether.

If we can’t work together because of different opinions we will never get anything done.

Maybe what Mr. DeMint would like us to do is just elect a king, president, dictator or whatever name you want to call a leader by today.  The person who gets elected then can pick his team leaders from each state with the same set of goals in mind.

In spite of the many Republicans thinking like Jim DeMint today,  I hope the voters in 2012 will vote for candidates that are open -minded and are willing to be adults and not childish like Mr. DeMint.