With friends like these Republicans, who needs enemies?

The above refrain is heard constantly now that the Republican Party has been revealed as merely the other Democrat Party in so many, many ways. I was a staunch Republican, once -- but in fight after fight, issue after issue, it was Republican politicians who either led the way to destruction or snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. What's going on, I asked myself -- are they all bad guys, nobody wearing white hats in this drama?

The answer is, in all honesty, that if there are any actual good guys in "mainstream" politics, they're increasingly, miserably, dismally hard to find. Name the issue and without much trouble I'll name the GOP "heroes" who've thoughtfully, sensitively reached across the aisle and saved the other side's self-esteem by keeping it from experiencing the heartbreak of defeat. We have discussion forum threads, but they're so starkly honesty I'm not allowed ot share them here.

Today's headlines bring new crushing ironies to this picture:

http://thenerve.org/news/2013/03/21/obamacare-hearing/?utm_source=The+Nerve&utm_campaign=4d06d4e0e1-Today_on_The_Nerve03_21_2013&utm_medium=email
Does Amended House Bill Nullify S.C.’s Efforts to Nullify Obamacare?

So -- you can spend months doing it right, rallying citizens to socially proper lobbying efforts, doing it the politicians' way, using diplomacy, facts and suasion to help them see that -- for instance -- it would be wrong for the states to allow one president to destroy 300 million people's health care. You can beautifully organize getting citizens to repeatedly travel to the state house -- you can fly in one of the topmost names in freedom science to testify. You can pack a hearing with 300 concerned citizens who've taken time off from work and life to exercise the citizen's supposed right to representative government.

You can probably fly to the moon, produce a cure for cancer, give each politician a million bucks in a cash envelope..... but in the end, the politicians will go with the politically correct flow against you, dashing to pieces your hopes of a future for your grandchildren, spitting in your face as they pull you and your family further under the yoke of communism! And in the present case, it will be Republicans who side with a communistic Democrat pseudo-president against your fondest hopes and most pressing needs -- yea, even in South Carolina, supposedly one of the most conservative entities in existence!

Oh, yeah, the politicians know better than the people -- trust them.

Déjà vu is the unhappy experience of a truth warrior over time. Here it's got a ghoulish edge: In one of the most important cultural battlefronts of the 20th century -- the Confederate flag battle in S.C. -- it was Republicans and Sons of Confederate Veterans judas goats that sold the people out. Rep. Rick Quinn is cited as a front runner in the present Obummercare betrayal, and Quinn was among the biggest sellouts in the endgame of the flag fight. He was thrown out of office in the next election after that great betrayal, but apparently learned nothing from the experience.

He and others are supposedly with us on the health care issue but quibble with key particulars enough to vote against them, supposedly to improve the bill at hand. Trust them, they're the professionals. They're from the government, and they're here to help you!

Wait a while.... haven't we been here before? Oh -- that other eerie sensation of familiarity must stem from the 1998 Slick Willy impeachment hearings! That was the time we came so close, so very close, to finally seeing one of our worst tormentors go down in political flames.... but strangely enough, even Republican politicians managed to pull reasons not to finish the job out of the hat.

Help me out here -- one of them's name was Flimsey Flam, or something like that..... oh, yeah, a famed Southern senator made national headlines by voting for some but not all of the articles of impeachment and -- for the good of the country, dont'cha know -- keeping Slick in office after all he'd done to disgrace it. Why, it was none other than South Carolina's very own pseudo-Republican demigod, Lindsey Graham!

The above article mentions the Tenth Amendment Center out west. Wonder what its problem is. Hey, I'm starting to wonder about the S.C. Policy Council that produced this report -- any idea why it keeps putting "nullify" and "nullification" in scare quotes? Do these words no longer stand for the noble desire of a people for self-government, as exemplified by South Carolina's bold stand for it in 1860? Who at the Policy Council finds these words so icky-poo they put in rubber gloves to handle them? Sure, they're quoting speakers in some cases, but not others.

May events make a fool out of the column you're reading. May the bill pass with its original teeth with the approval of Quinn, Pope and company. But if it turns out that way as it properly should, I'll eat fried chicken on the roof.

Don't look for Republican politicians to save you. Yes, they're paid to do so, but others I'm not allowed to mention pay them more not to.

Personal opinions of blogger /\/.\/\/.  torpenhow@charter.net