The Infamous Contract with America
Yesterday, I wrote a post about the renewal of the Contract with America, or at least the portions of it that were not fulfilled. I thought I would post the link to the actual Contract, which still resides on the House website.
I was a sophomore at UVM the year that the Republicans took back the House and Newt Gingrich became speaker. It was during a defining time in my life when I was just beginning to understand politics and where my views fit into the political spectrum. And, man, was it a great time to be a conservative.
I remember my freshman year in Political Science getting ripped to shreds by a liberal professor for expressing my views, which happened to contradict the liberal BS he was feeding us. I almost completely swore off speaking in class, until a guy from down the hall, who just happened to be conservative, swung by my room to tell me that he agreed with what I had said and that the professor had no right to treat me like that.
Well, the next year, I had the last laugh. Thanks to the brilliance that was the Contract with America, the GOP took control of the House and the liberals on campus had plenty to bitch about for the next...oh wait, they still do.
I remember there was this great graphic on the cover of Time Magazine that depicted an elephant trampling a donkey and the donkey’s eyes were bulging out. I cut it out and hung it on my bulletin board. Ahh, those were the days.
Okay, enough rambling. Here it is in all its glory, The Contract with America.
4 comments:
At least you met another guy who backed you up. I seem to be cursed with the "I'll argue with the professor and 108 other students until I'm blue in the face" personality. Also known as Enjoys Hitting Head Against Wall Disease. I'm never met with anything other than rolled eyes and the phrase "ughhh, here she goes again."
Too bad that the entire Contract was a lie.
The fools gained power and then threw all of their promises away.
Now they are beholden to the big money & corporate interests.
The Repubs don't serve us. They serve the big corporations that give them so much wealth.
It's true that they have violated their own contract, which is just plain wrong.
But to use the tired old 'beholden to big money...' line implies that Democrats aren't. The people running big corporations aren't stupid. They donate to both parties. They need leverage regardless of who wins.
Also, big corporations need constant income, or else they would become small corporations. They get that income from people like us by providing goods and services that we want at prices we are willing to pay. This is tough for many liberals to accept, but these corporations need to make us happy or they won't get our money. This makes them accountable to us in a real sense.
Being 'beholden to big business' is still better than being beholden to big unions and lawyers goups, as the Democrats in Washington are (that's in addition to big business don't forget). The only thing I see from those groups are higher prices goods, lower quality, and frivolous lawsuits. There's something to strive for!
I'm sitting here at my boyfriend's house in NYC and I just noticed the cover of the Febuary 13 issue of The American Conservative here.
Check it out.
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