Republicans Who Don't Love America

Frank Schaeffer in HuffPo:

Dear Republicans: This election all Republicans who love America must vote for Obama. . . . As a former Republican activist, I appeal to your patriotism and honor. . . .
It is time for all Americans -- including all you who are patriotic Republicans -- to sweep away these putrid earth-consuming, family killing, government bashing "me" worshipping individualistic fools--that or to watch our country be swept away by them. We can't afford eight more years of this willful ignorance. Obama in 2008!

Dear Frank Schaeffer: "Former Republican" being the key phrase here, eh? Good luck with that, buddy. You're well on your way to becoming the next Lincoln Chaffee.

I hereby announce the formation of Republicans Who Don't Love America. Our motto: "Eight More Years of Willful Ignorance!" We are emphatically dishonorable and unpatriotic, at least according to Frank Schaeffer's definition of those terms. We support the election of government-bashing, earth-consuming, individualistic Republican fools.

UPDATE: I'm reading through Schaeffer's screed -- it cannot be called an argument -- and relishing such calm, rational statements as this:

You have become a hate-filled rabble proud of your ignorance and resentful of the rest of your own country, resentment that's exceeded only by your maudlin (and false) sense of victimhood. . . .
The smell emanating from your convention was that of a beer hall putsch circa 1930s, not anything remotely like participation in a democracy.

Evidence? None offered. These passages are part of a section devoted to the Religious Right, one of what Schaeffer calls the three "power centers" of the GOP. He concludes this section by saying that Sarah Palin (whom he has never met) "lacks any shred of decent humility, the most basic biblical virtue." Decently Humble Frank just knows this, you see.

Schaeffer then goes on a rant against the second "power center," namely neconservatives, whom he describes as "nothing more than an kill-all-the-Arabs, pro-Israel-at-any-cost, morally bankrupt lobby."

Now, I am certainly no neoconservative. Many of my friends were notoriously smeared five years ago as "Unpatriotic Conservatives," but rather than offer a critique of Harry Jaffa and pick at old scars (one of these days, I aim to write a book called First They Came for Mel Bradford), I will say that I know of no neoconservative who advocates a "kill-all-the-Arabs" policy. There seem to be, however, a frighteningly large number of Arabs who endorse a "kill-all-the-Jews" policy -- which they pursue with deadly persistence -- and what does Schaeffer propose to do about them? I'm not sure, nor am I sure that the solution is to elect a man who spent 20 years in the pews listening to the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright.

Having spent his fury in railing against the Religious Right and neoconservatives, Schaeffer can muster only two paragraphs to denounce "Corporate Business Interests":

[The GOP] has propagated a laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests and has -- literally -- stood back and encouraged the rape of the earth. You are the party of the earth-hogging SUV. You have literally sowed the wind and reaped the hurricanes.

Hey, Frank, I hate to tell you this, but we didn't "rape the earth." It was consensual. The earth was begging for it, Frank. And if you don't mind sloppy seconds, get in line.

Seriously, I don't have an earth-hogging SUV. What I've got is a low-slung Korean-made sedan, with a sweet V6, power windows, a sunroof and a nice stereo. But I bought it used and I'll guaran-damn-tee you, Frank, I paid less for my car (the only one our family owns) than you paid for yours, you pompous Pharisee. You rich hypocrites, tithing the mint and cumin of environmentalism!

Go on Frank, go vote for the party of Al Gore and Bill Clinton and Margaret Cho and Sandra Bernhard. Vote for the party of Sandy Berger and Ted Kennedy and Kwame Kilpatrick. Vote for the party of Barbra Streisand and Harry Reid and Lynn Woolsey. But don't try to tell me that makes you honorable and patriotic. Spare me your "decent humility," you pathetic fraud.