Real America better than GOP fiction

Robert B. Elliott, Las Vegas

Monday, Sept. 8, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.

A surprising percentage of those affiliated with the GOP wish nostalgically for a golden American era that never really existed. The America that the Republicans claim to love more than the rest of us is a fictional and ideal (in their biased minds) place that exists only in their minds and that they have created to reconcile their own conflict, contradictions and mental confusion. In their America, it is OK for a president to lie repeatedly to the people about starting a war. In their minds an American president has to be the good guy automatically and lies must be told, because a majority of citizens just aren’t smart enough to know what is good for them.

They love the concept of the “invisible hand” that magically works to make everything right, because of the supposedly inviolable laws of supply and demand. But they habitually do everything possible to control that hand from behind the scenes. More often than not, it reaches out to choke the life out of the average person and his or her family.

According to another of their theories, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” But few of the Republicans and none of their politicians are rowing ordinary boats as the rest of us are. They have used ruthless tactics, deception and graft far too often to equip themselves with battleships and cruise liners, while the rest of us get battered to pieces by their hostile waves or drowned in our small canoes. These Republicans summarily brand or stereotype the homeless as weak and worthless people.

I love the actual America I live in, with all its issues and conflicts. I’m not looking for perfection or utopia. But we could sure do with a lot less Republican hysteria and hatred.