Monday, June 16, 2008

Why In The World Did You Pick That Name?

I've been asked the above question by many friends and family about my blogsite's name being, "friendlyneighborhoodrepublican.blogspot.com." I have a lot of answers.

First, I know it's a really long name. I tried to choose "fnr" instead, but it was taken. I then shortened it to "fnrepublican..." Then someone told me that I had just named my blog "effen republican..." So I had to use the full name.

I've had acquaintances who want to check out the blog ask for the name and say, "You'd better write that down; I won't remember all of that." So I oblige. I have to repeat it a lot so people get the whole thing. But this is my name, and I'm sticking to it.

Why? It's important to me to use the name "friendly neighborhood republican" because it's who I am. I am your neighbor, your friend, the woman you see at the grocery store. I go to the movies. I love my dogs. I break with my party on certian issues, like gay rights. I am part of a community. I make my own decisions.

I am not the boogeyman the left paints all Republicans to be. Indirectly, I have been labeled, (just to name a few) a "child hater," "anti-choice," "anti-feminist," "bigot," "stupid," "religious zealot," and let's not forget Al Franken's gem, "fucking shameless."

Some would assume I'm against education because I don't believe there should be a Department of Education at the federal level.

They’d consider me insensitive to the mentally disabled because I agreed with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissenting argument in a case that outlawed putting low-IQ inmates to death. He made the right decision because the law opened up a huge loophole for death row inmates to jump through by intentionally doing poorly on IQ tests. It was a bad case. If they had tried it without the giant loophole, I would have been for it.

As for those labels, I am pro-life, not “anti-choice.” I think you can make all the choices you want as long as they don’t result in the death of someone else. And I’m not “anti-feminist” just because I am pro-life. I believe in equality for women and believe strongly that abortion hurts women. But that’s another blog.

Governor Pawlenty recently vetoed a bill that would have expanded required genetic testing of newborns. To Democrats afflicted with knee disorders (they jerk the moment someone doesn't agree with them) that would mean "Republicans Hate Children." The reason he vetoed the bill, however, was because it didn't give parents enough power to keep a child's samples from being used in long-term research. Most of the left's examples of how much Republicans hate children are along these lines. The simplistic thought is to say, "That's good for kids, but Republicans don't like it. That means they hate children." The linear thought process says, yes it would help children but we can't okay it until it covers all the bases and doesn't create new problems. (insert exasperated sigh)

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a bigot. I once threw a friend out of my home for using a racial epithet. One example of so-called Republican bigotry was used in a column by Paul Krugman of the New York Times. He said Republicans used stereotypes of welfare queens driving Cadillacs to increase the racial divide. The problem with that argument, however, is that statistics have shown that more white women were on AFDC than women of color, so how was being against welfare abuse and negative social engineering racist? This is typical of the swiss-cheese arguments used to paint conservatives with a bigot brush.

Mensa would disagree that I’m stupid. I don’t use religion as a basis for any of my political beliefs. And Al Franken’s comment, well, says more about him than it does me.

If Democrats would quit proposing laws full of holes, bills full of pork and start trying to have linear thoughts, much of the glue for the labels they stick on Republicans would disintegrate.

I don’t let Democrats define me. I am a unique individual. I’m also a Republican. So I’ll keep my long, hard-to-remember, hard-to-type blog name. It suits me just fine.

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