Written by Thomas Magstadt   

You must be a Republican if you believe...

1. Jesus loves you, but shares your deep hatred of homosexuals, gay marriage, gun control advocates, conservationists, animal rights activists, and Barack Obama.

2. "Support our troops" means backing old white men who have no qualms about sending other people's kids to die in wars we can't win in countries whose people hate us for being there.

3. The best way to restore growth and prosperity to the US economy is to fire your workers and outsource everything possible to Asia.

4. Venture capitalists who make millions of dollars slicing and dicing companies and overloading the unlucky ones with so much debt that they have to declare bankruptcy and cease operations cannot possibly continue to create jobs unless they get huge tax breaks and pay at an average rate of 14% or less; otherwise, they won't be "incentivized" to go on making millions while transacting important business on the golf course.

5. Being a lesbian, petty thief, or drug addict is a sign of moral degeneracy unless you're the daughter of a conservative politician, investment banker, or extreme right-wing radio host. Then it's either laudable or an illness for which the appropriate remedy is prayer, not punishment.

6. The National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council are trying to protect the public, but non-profit public interest groups like the Sierra Club, The Trust for Public Land, and the Urban Land Institute only care about taking away our freedoms and turning everybody into tree huggers and vegetarians.

7. Providing comprehensive family health care and generous job benefits to members of Congress, federal employees, and military personnel is patriotic, but providing health care to all American taxpayers is socialism

8. Shoplifting is a crime but stealing billions of dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund to finance tax cuts for the rich and subsidies for big business, among other things, is sound public policy.

9. There's no proof of global climate change, ocean acidification or rising levels of CO2 concentration threatening marine life on a vast scale, but teaching creationism in schools is a good idea. Intelligent design, on the other hand, is only slightly less objectionable than Darwin's pseudo-scientific theory of "natural selection".

10. The government that governs least governs best except when it comes to gay marriage, abortion, warrantless wiretaps, pot, bank bailouts, or travel to Cuba.


11. The public has a perfect right to see Barack Obama's birth certificate but Mitt Romney's tax returns are nobody's business.

12. The plan for universal health care that Mitt Romney signed into law as Governor of Massachusetts was a stroke of political genius; the plan Barack Obama signed into law is a sure sign that he's a socialist out to destroy the American way of life. The fact that the Massachusetts law is a template for "ObamaCare" is totally irrelevant.

13. The fact that Obama's father was an African from Kenya of modest means raised in a Muslim family and that Obama's middle name is "Hussein" is, well, meaningful; the fact that Mitt Romney's father was a rich Mormon, that Mitt was born in Mexico and his name is Willard, not Mitt, is meaningless.

14. Deficits are a huge problem that must be dealt with at all costs but not by raising taxes or with defense cuts; instead, because Congress has raided the "trust fund" to cover deficits ever since the 1980s, the only fair and proper thing to do is to cut social security benefits. Penalizing the super rich just because the payroll-tax cut-off exempts all but a tiny percentage of multi-millionaire dollar incomes is a form of class warfare.

15. Everything that can privatized, must be, including penal institutions, education and disaster relief; Governor Christie showed his leadership skills when he turned to FEMA for help (and praised President Obama) after Hurricane Sandy slammed into the Jersey shore.

16. Deregulation is the key to efficient financial markets and high-growth economies; bailing out the big financial institutions that engaged in fraudulent, high-risk practices, created toxic assets, and brought about the Great Recession is necessary because they are too big to fail.

17. Stealing a little is a crime punishable by a long prison sentence; stealing a lot is career enhancing and a sign that you understand how modern capitalism works.

18. All citizens have a right to vote but a big turnout is bad for democracy.

If you're a Republican and you don't believe these things, you are probably: a) in the wrong party; b) living in the past; or c) very, very rich.

Note: A slightly different version of this piece appeared at Nation of Change.