Choose ethics at the ballot box
I grew up in the 1950s in a Republican home. I liked Ike because my father did, not because I had formed any political opinions or was anywhere near voting age. For the life of me, I can’t recall if my Catholic parents voted for John Kennedy in 1960, or if I was secretly rooting for him.
By the time I was in high school, I found that the hope and youthful enthusiasm exuded by JFK were appealing to me. Just as for many of my contemporaries, the Kennedy assassination shook my world. A little later in life, challenging inequalities and working for social justice in small ways became goals that fell into sharper focus for me. Thus the Democratic party was a natural home.
Now some of my best friends are Republicans, and I wouldn’t begrudge them their choice of beliefs. But “conservative principles” has become an oxymoron. For years the GOP preached fiscal responsibility; now they give us trillion-dollar budget deficits thanks to tax cuts mostly for the wealthy. Today’s GOP leaders talk a lot about family values, good jobs, patriotism, and a booming economy only as a way to secure votes to keep themselves in office. They promise the moon, but have delivered scandals, stagnant wages, reckless and ongoing wars, and recessions over the past 40-plus years. The party of the rich seems to enrich itself at the expense of the common man.
A prime example of a GOP moral failure is conservative activist Ed Whelan. He attempted to undercut sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. In a convoluted theory Whelan implicated a former Kavanaugh classmate as the real culprit, whose name and address he divulged. That’s how the soul of a conservative operates these days-doing anything, including smearing a private citizen, to get his SCOTUS choice approved. How ironic that Whelan will be taking a leave of absence as president of a conservative think tank called the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
For my part, I recommend you follow your own moral code and the path of integrity when it comes time to vote in November. The party of Trump and any mid-term candidates who follow his amoral and shameful lead don’t deserve my vote-or yours, if you give some honest thought to your own ethics when you head to the polls.
Bernie Quarrick
Uniontown