How to Tell if You Are a Republican

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by Jerry Sneirson

If you want to go easy on Corporate Fraud.

If you think that there is no conflict of interest when a corporation's accountants and auditors are the same people.

If you want to minimize or do away with the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and Medicare.

If you want to privatize social security.

If you want to accelerate the ongoing transfer of wealth to the wealthiest among us.

If you want to increase payroll taxes and decrease taxes for the very wealthy.

If you don't mind a stagnant economy, smaller markets, and less economic opportunity.

If avoiding war is not on your list of priorities.

If your answer to growing deficits is a tax cut for the wealthy.

If your idea of a cure for an economic recession is a tax cut for the wealthy.

If you think the cure for a falling stock market is a tax cut for the wealthy.

If you believe in trickle-down economics.

If you like our collapsing health care system the way it is.

If you think government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy, (Plutocracy) is good government.

If you see an advantage to high unemployment.

If you want CEOs and Boards of Directors to continue looting our corporations and pensions.

If you want the middle class to pay for most of the infrastructure, while the wealthy benefit the most from it.

If you want the public to continue being brainwashed by the corporate-owned and -controlled media.

If you want companies like Enron to write our national energy policy.

If you see no problem with pharmaceutical corporations and insurance companies writing prescription drug benefit legislation.

If you want a huge federal deficit.

If you want to end a woman's right to choose.

If you want a society of haves and have nots.

If you believe that people like Ken Lay, Dennis Koslowski, Craig Benson, and Bernie Ebbers, have your best interests at heart.

If you have a dislike of the upper middle, middle and lower economic classes.

If you like politicians who talk like democrats but vote to the right of Religious Fundamentalists and Attilla the Hun.

If you associate with working people only when absolutely necessary.

If you think hypocrisy is respectable.

If you want inside traders and people who are into politics to make money occupying the highest positions in our government.

If you want the Supreme Court to choose your president.

If you want America to be an Aristocracy.

If you can afford solid gold bathroom fixtures and 10,000 dollar shower curtains.

If you believe that all works of art should be fully clothed.

If you don't mind the need to conceal the fact that you are an American when traveling in other parts of the world.

If you can't see the hypocrisy of yelling "class warfare" while dropping nuclear moneybombs on the poor and the middle class.

If you think Jerry Falwell is a "man of god".

If you think that Rush Limbaugh is one of history's "great philosophers".

If you think Fox News is "Fair and Balanced".

If you think the value of labor to capital is subsistence.

If you think that profit and pollution balance each other out.

If you abhor compromise.

If facts confuse you.

If you have a large collection of assault weapons.

If you think that economics is a zero sum game.

If you can't stand the idea of a poor person having a good meal.

If you think that people who need food stamps should be shot.

If you could care less about the circumstances that might have caused a person to become poor and homeless.

If you are a "compassionate conservative" who believes that volunteers will cover the needs of the unfortunate, but you never volunteer for anything.

If your compassion is unfunded.

If you think all the good things that happened from 1992 until 2000 are because of the good works of George Bush and that all of the bad things that have happened since 2000 are Bill Clinton's fault.

If you refuse to take responsibility for what happens on your watch.

If your "service to the nation" consists of putting a small flag on your car.

If you are a "Chickenhawk".

If you think "not inhaling" pot is a worse crime than sniffing cocaine.

If you think it's okay for a lower qualified applicant to get ahead of hundreds of higher qualified but "lower born" candidates to get a cushy job protecting Texas from Mexico because your daddy has lots of political influence, while someone you replaced has to go to a really dangerous place.

If you think it's okay for one born to privilege to go AWOL from a military assignment that he "volunteered" for, without penalty.

If Starr, Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist are your favorite judges and you want more like them.

If you think the "ruling class" are better than anyone else, unless they are democrats.

If you think that billionaires like Richard Mellon Scaife should spend millions of dollars attacking Democrats sex lives while totally ignoring the larger indiscretions (including incest) of his right wing friends.

If you are a religiously insane fundamentalist.

If issues of "fairness" never concern you.

If it doesn't embarrass you that the top two "leaders" of our nation are convicted drunk drivers.

If you think it's okay that the man with his finger on the big red button can't even pronounce the word "nuclear" correctly.

If the words "Treason" and "Supreme Court," never enter your mind in close proximity.

If you can't see the conflict and hypocrisy of being anti-gay when one of your own children is gay.

If you think that other people should go to prison for doing the same things that you yourself did.

If you think Harvey Pitt will do a good job overseeing the prosecution of his friends and benefactors.

If you make 100,000 dollars a year and you think you are in the upper economic class.

If you think that transferring the nation's wealth into fewer hands makes for a healthy economy and a healthy society.

If money is more important to you than life itself.

If you would sacrifice the lives of others, for money, oil, gold, or power.

If you think workers have no right to organize.

If you would be a scab against your fellow workers.

If you think that one person getting a billion dollars a year makes a better economic opportunity for your business than 10,000 people making 100,000 dollars a year.

If you would like the market for your business to consist of one billionaire instead of 10,000 middle class families.

If you think that certain ethnic groups should not be allowed to vote.

If you think that a felon, a relative of a felon, a person with a similar name to a felon, a person who once knew a felon, a person whose last name matches that of a felon, or a person who saw a movie about a felon should be purged from the voting rolls, especially if he is black and likely to vote democratic.

If you insist that W really won Florida fair and square, knowing absolutely that he didn't.

If you think that the novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," is about wine making.

If you want to eliminate the home mortgage deduction.

If you think that a "Bermuda Triangle PO Box" is a great way to avoid corporate taxes.

If you want a "FLATten the middle class" tax.

If you subscribe to the "greed is good" philosophy.

If you think that the distribution of income in the United States is fair and just.

If it is okay with you that the super wealthy are too rich and powerful to pay their fair share of taxes.

If you think "Whitewater" was a bigger deal than "Harken Oil."

If you want to follow the "trifecta" pResident anywhere he wants to lead us.

If you can't see our democracy hurting.

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