Politics has always been crazy. But it should remain honest and respectful above all (well, respectful, because neither party is 100% honest all of the time), because both political parties have the same end goal–a prosperous America–just different ideas about the means to reach this end. It’s the adversarial system, just like we have in the courts, which keeps the other side in check. But I try to steer clear of sides and stay away from labels, focusing instead on tactics and principles. There’s validity in both political parties’ values, and for either one, misleading or just plain dishonest tactics for ‘winning’ are uncalled for. But today, October 3rd, 2014,  the Republican Party has gone too far with its tactics to win the Senate majority in November, all the way to lawlessness. Regretfully, this cannot be a balanced post, because I don’t know much dirt on the Democratic Party (except that Obama’s cadre, who send me dozens of emails daily which are clearly intended to rile me up, seem too militant to me), but the shocking tactics of the Republican Party are irrelevant to politics and destructive to a justice-for-all America. The Republican big wigs, like Karl Rove and the millionaire Koch brothers, seem to be doing whatever it takes to win, even when it means breaking the law or violating the constitution.

It’s fair to promote Republican values to try to influence voters–of course–both parties can do this and remain honest (for the most part). But it’s dead wrong to complicate the voting process with burdensome voter ID laws, to cut off early voting, or to undermine voter registration efforts for likely Democrats.  The Republican Party somehow has even gotten the Supreme Court to uphold their voter suppression efforts.  It has even gone further than suppression in some cases, all the way to canceling out early votes in Ohio and Wisconsin or ‘loosing’ 40,000 voter registrations in Georgia. But I say voting is a fundamental (not to mention constitutional) right that makes this country great. It should remain steadfast and sacred at all costs (pun intended). Similarly, demoting laws or entitlements that are against a party’s agenda is fair, but spreading lies about existing ones is not. The Republican Party has been spending millions of dollars on Obama-bashing  ads and smearing the air waves with half truths about Obama’s agenda for many months now. And I don’t even know what to say about the unprecedented and ludicrous act of trying to sue the President of the United States. Regardless of which political party I mostly conform to, sleazy tactics totally turn me off.