A Three Party System

So, the Dems have the donkey, the GOP has the elephant, but...what animal does the Hypocrite party have? The hippo?

The Hypocrite Party...you know, that party full of Democrats and Republicans who tow their party lines, spout party rhetoric, and then do the exact opposite in their own lives. For example, how Republicans champion fiscal responsibility! to anyone who will listen, and yet the Bush administration racked up more national debt than just about any other president in history. Or, how they scream for family values! and yet 1) we've dropped countless errant bombs on civilian families in Iraq (or maybe non-American families don't count, they're just collateral damage?, 2) this purposeless war has not only led to increased suicide rates amongst service members because of the lack of psychological support they receive after tours of duty, but it has also led to an increase in divorce rates amongst deployed troops (Up with family, GOP!).
But don't think I'm ripping solely on the Republicans. Noooo, the Democrats are equal inductees into the Hypocrite Party. I love how Democrats like to point the finger at Republicans for being the party of aristocrats who don't understand "the common folk." Actually, Democrats tend to be more affluent and more highly educated than the Republican base or their elected officials, hence the "Latte-drinking Liberal" slam we heard during the last election. What about the Democratic adherence to Change! during Obama's run for office? If that wasn't the buzzword of the decade, I don't know what was. But what happens when the guy gets elected to office? He tries to implement change--asking a far-right conservative Evangelical pastor to deliver the prayer at the inauguration ceremony--and Democrats go crazy. How DARE he do something like that? How could he possibly reach across the aisle to someone he (and his supporters) don't agree completely with and invite the man to pray for the country? It's unheard of! I guess Democrats wanted to be able to dictate what types of change Obama would be making, because if it included cooperating with the conservative right, then Dems didn't want any part in it.

Which leads me to a few people I know (who shall remain nameless). I'm constantly mystified by how supportive they are of their party line until they have to practice what they preach. For example, one of my very good friends is a hard and fast Liberal who supports Affirmative Action...until the policy meant that her husband's promotion might have been kaiboshed so that a person from an underrepresented group got the position instead. Another Liberal friend is all for universal health care...except if it means she has to give up the very choice health insurance plan she and her family currently enjoy. Several of my nose-to-the-ground, so-called-activist-minded Liberal friends are all about community development and organizing...as long as they don't have to actually live in any of the neighborhoods that need help. While Adam and I recognize that we don't live in the nicest of neighborhoods, I'd like to think that we've done our part to improve it in some way; amongst even our most progressive friends, our neighborhood is a joke that they wouldn't even consider living in, not even to help improve things.

And what about my Republican friends? Okay, I get the whole religious right aspect to much of modern-day conservatism. However, I still don't believe that that trumps the original tenants of the Republican Party--small government that stays out of the people's business. Whether you personally do or don't support homosexuality, it seems completely hypocritical to me that as a Republican one could believe that government has any role in who sleeps with whom, who gets married, who inherits property, who can adopt needy children (with the exception of pedophiles and axe murderers). Isn't government involvement the anti-Republican stance? Being the biologist that I am, my all-time favorite hypocrisy is Republicans and the environment. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, was one of the original leaders of the environmentalism movement! Back then, the natural resources this nation provided were respected, cherished and conserved. Under current Republican administrations, they are cut down, excavated, overhunted and polluted. Roosevelt supported Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the US Forest Service, who advocated for conservation and wise use of natural resources. Current Republican administrations advocate for cutting trees to make way for more logging roads in national forests. How did the GOP go from Teddy Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear to Sarah Palin shooting wolves from a helicopter?

So all hail the lastest inductees into America's latest, albeit unrecognized, party! All hail to the Hypocrite Party!