I've Been Getting Some Flack Over My Issues With the Republican Party

Ever since I posted "I Believe it is Time to Part Ways with the Republican Party" I have been getting some flack about it.  So I wanted to make my feelings clear.  The Republican Party of today is characterized as RINO.  If you are unfamiliar with the acronym, it stands for Republican In Name Only.

Normally when you hear the word, it's used to describe someone who outwardly is a Republican, but has shown either a streak of independence, or worse, support for some things supported by the Democratic Party.  I disagree with that description.  I believe currently identified Republicans have betrayed the principles that the party was founded on.  I need to take you on a little history tour.  The Republican Party was founded on a number of principles:

"Early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan "free labor, free land, free men" . . .. "Free labor" referred to the Republican opposition to slave labor and belief in independent artisans and businessmen. "Free land" referred to Republican opposition to plantation system whereby slaveowners could buy up all the good farm land, leaving the yeoman independent farmers the leftovers. The Party strived to contain the expansion of slavery, which would cause the collapse of the slave power and the expansion of freedom." (Wikipedia:  Republican Party)

The party stressed individual rights, even based its name on the philosophy of Republicanism, which can be explained as:

"It stresses liberty and unalienable individual rights as central values, making people sovereign as a whole, rejects monarchy, aristocracy and inherited political power, expects citizens to be independent in their performance of civic duties, and vilifies corruption." (Wikipedia: Republicanism)

Does this sound anything like the Republican Party of today?  The modern Republican Party should have been leading the charge for a woman's right to choose, for civil rights, for gay marriage!  After all, aren't those individual rights?  But no, it's the modern Republican Party who opposes these things!  

When you point out this to a die-hard Republican, they like to point to Gun Laws as an area where the Party stresses individual rights, but that doesn't hold much water with me.  I believe the modern Republican Party is too indebted to the National Rifle Association that they are willing to tolerate irresponsible gun rights!  How else would you explain why near 500 children so far this year are dead not because of random drive-by shootings but by accidental shootings because of the actions of irresponsible gun owners!  (Latest example: In Georgia 2nd Amendment protected 18 month old from ever making it to his 2nd birthday.)  Yet it is those same Republicans who stonewall even funding to study gun violence, let alone any responsible gun ownership requirements, like not letting people on the No-Fly list have access to guns!

The Republican Party of today would be unrecognizable to the original Republican Party of Jefferson or even the beginnings of the current Republican Party of Lincoln.  It's not just Trump that has soured me on this Party, but a host of actions over the decades since I first registered as a Republican voter.  Trump certainly epitomizes everything wrong with the Republican Party and their lack of cojones, but he's more the results than the cause.

One last reason, reported by CNBC: "GOP says Pence won the VP debate — before the debate even happened" and here is the graphic:

Apparently they took it down after about 10 minutes.  Boggles the mind!

The modern Republican Party needs to simply go away and that's exactly what I see happening as the corrupt, racist, power-hungry, and extremist religious conservatives take it over more and more overtly.  I believe it's strangling itself.  It will be a slow and painful death and history will record that the tipping point was the nomination of a misogynistic, failed businessman, and racist ideologue as their nominee for President.