An Encouraging Sign

Las Vegas Review Journal editor Sherman Frederick woke up.

I pushed the DMV clerk the paperwork. She shoved it back and said I didn't have to fill out that form if my address remained the same.

"No, I want to change party affiliation."

"Oh," she said. "Had enough of the president, have we?"

"Up to here. I quit."

Republicans offer our only hope in slowing the Obama "change" juggernaut before the America of unbridled optimism and opportunity goes the way of the buffalo. I don't want my great-grandchildren growing up in cradle-to-grave government care, where only the privileged few may afford a car, or own a home, or get non-rationed health care.

The only institution positioned to stop the progression of the Obama welfare state is the Republican Party, coupled with independent-minded Americans like me.

Second, the popular myth that the Democratic Party is the party of tolerance and big-tent ideas is spectacularly false.

A fiscal conservative such as myself is treated by Obamaniacs like a ringing cell phone in church. "Shhhh!" they say. The only debate among Democrats is how fast and how deeply to run up the national debt. Any Democrat who questions deficit spending or a limit to federal power is simply not invited to the party.

And finally, I have reservations about abortion. Now, I know that there are many Democrats who call themselves "pro life."

But being a "pro life" Democrat doesn't mean you're "anti-abortion." It means that you are "abortion tolerant." The rationalization goes like this: "Abortion is the law of the land. Abortion is wrong. But abortion must be supported and expanded."

It's hardly an intellectually honest position, but all "pro life" Democratic office holders must toe that line. The moral dilemma is further compounded by the Democratic Party ethic that taxpayer money must be used to fund abortion, here and abroad.