OPINION: Big Government from the GOP is just as bad as the GOP said it would be
For decades, Republicans have cried about Big Government intruding on your rights, and now that they hold a lot of power in statehouses, they are proving how terrible big government can be in GOP hands.
Democrats want to fight for voting rights and women’s right to choose — actual freedom and rights.
I remember from my previous political life as a Republican. I believed the core principle of the GOP was limited government. Republicans always talked about rights and freedoms and how the Democrats were always trying to take them away. But little did I know that it was the Democratic Party that was fighting for the rights and liberties of all Americans. Giving women the right to choose, equality for all, the fight to end systemic racism, everyone having the right to due process, etc. Rights and liberties should be an American value, but not to today’s Republican Party.
Republicans wanted the people to choose, not the government to choose for them. Except on the issue of abortion, which they favor no choice.
Years later, in the present day, after the veil has been lifted from my eyes, the Republican Party is, in reality, the party with the “values” of control they claim to be against. For example, you can say you can be “pro-life” in the confinements of your home, but the Republican Party takes it a step further.
In some states, they’ve passed legislation that ignored the Constitutional right of women to make their own private healthcare choices enshrined in Roe vs. Wade, made abortion illegal, and in Texas placed a never before seen legal structure on the law offering bounties on women who choose to terminate a pregnancy.
No bounties have been paid out yet by the state of Texas, but that doesn’t mean lawsuits haven’t been filed. In September, two separate plaintiffs filed lawsuits against Alan Braid, a San Antonio physician who wrote a Washington Post op-ed about violating the ban and continuing to provide his patients with abortion care. While the two plaintiffs against Braid—Oscar Stilley and Felipe N. Gomez—have publicly said they are not personally anti-abortion, they could still benefit financially if a Texas court finds merit in their respective suits against Braid.
What’s hypocritical coming from today’s Republicans is the line” their body, their choice” on masks and vaccines, claiming it’s a “violation” of their freedoms. But what about the freedom and liberties of women?
Their bodies, their choice, and science show that a fetus is not necessarily a life until certain stages in a pregnancy.
Republicans also have implemented laws to make it harder for black people to vote. Voting is the essential freedom all Americans have, and yet, they don’t want the John Lewis Act to pass. By the way, who is in favor of more freedom and more voting rights? The Democrats. All of these GOP restrictions on people’s freedoms and rights don’t sound like the party I thought I knew.
The list goes on.
Republicans want to take books they don’t like off the shelves. They don’t want history about America’s original sin of slavery to be taught in schools.
How is this limited government?
And Republicans definitely don’t want teachers to have important conversations with the LGBTQ kids or about their issues so children can better understand what they go through in the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill in Florida.
Republicans’ claim that they are for limited is disproven, but here is one final example. Free speech is dying in Florida. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis lashed out at Disney by threatening to take away its special privileges just because the company opposed his “Don’t Say Gay” Bill. That’s an actual violation of the first amendment if there ever was one.
The Republican Party is not the party of limited government. The GOP is the party of power and control.
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