The GOP thinks Americans can and should take care of all of their problems, That is, each citizen, like an island, fends for himself in a world where the invisible hand of the market serves as regulator. Democrats believe something very different. They believe in the principles set out by President Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican and my second favorite President, in his 1910 speech in Osawatomie, Kan., and echoed by President Obama in his address there last week. That is America and Americans are better when citizens work together and watch out for each other, that cooperating protects and helps the individual and the country as a whole.
Republicans don't believe in that. They want to set up a country where every person is responsible for every aspect of daily life, from ensuring drinking water is safe to reducing workplace hazards. The GOP wants to shred regulations that protect citizens, even eliminate the federal agencies that enforce them. Congressional Republicans have worked to defund the Environmental Protection Agency, a move that would "empower" each citizen to persuade big industrial polluters to limit the particulates, mercury, arsenic, cadmium and lead belching from smokestacks. WE could do that ourselves right? NOT!
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said he'd reverse laws forbidding child labor -- the same regulations Teddy Roosevelt endorsed to keep youngsters in classrooms and out of factories. In a nation deeply concerned about the quality of schools and the quantity of imported oil, GOP candidate Rick Perry plans to close the Education and Energy departments. Republican candidate Ron Paul would abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the organization citizens created to aid fellow Americans who fall victim to natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and floods.
But that's just the point: Republicans don't believe Americans should help each other -- they should only help themselves. In the GOP view, greed and selfishness aren't sins. They're virtues.
The concept is citizens working together for their mutual benefit and the advancement of their nation. American citizenship is not, Roosevelt said in his New Nationalism Address in Osawatomie in 1910, all about individual enrichment: It is about country and our children’s future.
Both Presidents think the general public needs protection from big banks and corporations that are stealing from the wealth of this great nation. Together we are stronger and we need a rewarded hard working class. That is the main point of the OWS movement. It is not about government handouts like the Fox media is trying to sell you. It is about a fair deal between corporations and workers. Who in their right mind can be against that kind of future for their own children Regulation is needed to protect the poor from the wealthy two headed monster
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