By Dan Shiff

The Republican elites, over the past seven years and especially during the recent convention have shown their true colors. Despite their opposition to a “nanny state,” they want you dependent on the government for your security and they want you to stop thinking and just trust ‘Merica. They want you to be children of the patriarchal state (dare I say fatherland). Consider the current administration. When given an opportunity to challenge Americans to work hard and serve the country—perhaps through service (military or civilian), perhaps through rationing of oil—our President told us to go shopping. We were not forced to shed our innocence and act like adults, but instead asked to behave like indulgent children and trust the government to take care of the dirty work. Likewise, the “we can’t tell you but rest assured it’s okay” defense of “enhanced interrogation techniques” might as well have been, “I’ll explain it to you when you’re older.” But that was the Bush administration; McCain has promised to change the tone of Washington.

Let’s consider the GOP convention to see if he will deliver. One thing I saw a lot of at the convention was rhythmic chanting. I don’t think the Republicans expressed a policy that can’t be boiled down to three or four syllables. There was the omnipresent “U-S-A” and the newly coined “Drill-baby-drill”. I was waiting for “save-the-fe-tus,” “man-and-wo-man,” and “low-er-tax-es” to appear. All followed by the obligatory clap-clap-clapclapclap. The Democrats had some U-S-A chanting as well but it was nowhere near as pervasive. In fact, Jon Stewart made a point of the Democratic Party’s inability to chant well in his commentary on Biden’s speech. I’m fairly certain that if the Democrats had been watching football, they would have gladly and fervently began chanting for their team. But sports are about a simple message, e.g. “Go Penn.” Policy is complex and nuanced; it cannot and should not be turned into a chant. Democrats have learned this as have Republicans. But the Republican elites don’t want you thinking about policy like a responsible citizen. They want to give you a chant so you feel useful, but really they’re telling you not to worry your pretty little head about it; they will take care of all that unpleasant, difficult thinking.

Huckabee, when he spoke, told an interesting story. A teacher removed her desks from the classroom and wouldn’t return them until the students figured out how they could earn them. Since good grades and behavior was expected in the class, those couldn’t be used to get the desks as well (never mind that desks are also expected). At the end of the day, when no one solved the riddle, she told them that they didn’t have to earn their desks since they had already been earned for them, as veterans marched in carrying the desks. (I thought the US Military fought for our freedom, not our desks. Evidently, I hadn’t learned about the Great Desk War in history.) Think about what the GOP just endorsed there. Everything you have as an American you owe to the Military; the only way to truly earn anything is to serve. That’s a message I expect to hear in Athens two and a half millennia ago, not today in America. Even worse, given their derisive laughter about community organizers, one can infer that the only service to make an adult citizen out of you is military service. The state, and nothing else, will make you an adult.

The Republicans, old and new (well older actually), have said that you, an American Citizen, are a child. Your questions won’t be answered because you won’t understand, but trust us; we know what’s best for you. You shouldn’t think about the nuances of policy because that will just hurt your head (and incidentally, our vote totals). You are under no obligation to grow up and show responsibility, but may instead behave as a spoiled child of the government. You should whine anytime you are asked to contribute more money for the common good, like an adult citizen in a community should do. And if you really want to grow up, the only way is to directly serve the state in the military. You can’t become a true adult without the state’s support and approval. And yet, despite their wanting you to think, not chant, and to become a responsible, adult citizen in the way you see fit, the Democrats are the ones labels as elitist, condescending and controlling.