LETTER: Political shift calls for re-labeling of parties

Talk about it

To the Editor:

We are at a moment of history that calls for a switch in the names we apply to political parties. For decades, the Republican Party has owned the name “conservative,” while “liberal,” with demeaning adjectives such as “spendthrift,” “immoral” and “unpatriotic,” has been applied to the Democratic Party.

So, who are the true conservatives in U.S. politics today, and who are the radicals?

The true conservatives are:

1) Those who would keep intact the Social Security system and are fighting to keep it from being gutted by new radicals in politics;

2) Those who would protect Medicare and Medicaid from the efforts of those who would dismantle these programs in favor of private health-care insurance companies;

3) Those who would keep the U.S. Postal Service as a federal function in the face of those, like Sen. John Thune, who would privatize it;

4) Those who believe the wealthiest Americans should pay a higher rate of taxes than the poor and the middle class;

5) Those who would support manufacturing in the U.S. by placing at least a 10 percent import tax on goods manufactured outside of the country.

So who are the radicals? Those who advocate legislation to weaken the federal government’s power to regulate banking and industry, and to protect our environment from pollution. The radicals are those who blame the poor for not working hard enough to rise above poverty, even as companies moving their operations overseas have taken away the livelihood of thousands of Americans.

The radicals are those who would downsize the federal government and turn over many of its functions to the states, who even now cannot manage their obligations without federal aid. The radicals are those who put the international interests of corporations ahead of Americans.

Listening to Republican candidate Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama at their debate in Denver, it should be very clear to the American people who is truly a radical and who is a conservative of American values and culture.

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