Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

…about the issues that matter to us.

Republican lawmakers are some of the weakest people in the world. With the notable exception of Donald Trump and a few Senators and Representatives, the overwhelming majority of Republicans elected to office can be relied upon to negotiate like Pope Francis did with Communist China (as in, sell out on all accounts and get nothing), find excuses for not pushing reforms that matter to the voters, and then reliably asking for more money because otherwise the evil Democrats will come to power.

Meanwhile, progressive lawmakers on the Democrat side push everything from porn in elementary classrooms and allowing sexual assault to go unpunished if the person is transgender to EV mandates and our military bankrolling abortion. They get pretty much all of these things, and since Republicans maybe roll back half of them, this means that “progress” is happening.

I don’t want Republicans to be conservative. Conserving means someone focuses on maintaining the status quo. That status quo is never going to happen. Technology changes our environment. Advances in medicine and communication means we can live longer, instantly communicate around the world, and even travel into outer space. It also brings on new challenges. Who would have thought that we’d be asking ourselves what to do with one million frozen embryos babies? Or how we would keep our faith if we lived on Mars?

The typical conservative response is to stick one’s head in the sand and refuse to accept the change. At my church, I have a parishioner that believes WiFi is damaging to your brain and causes cancer. When I installed a campus-wide WiFi network, every young person was ecstatic, but this guy was incensed. He spent an hour verbally blasting me while I was working, finally causing me to express some notably non-Christian phrases and tell him to…well, you can probably guess.

Yet after the network was complete, every young mom could stream the Mass on YouTube in the parking lot when they had to take their screaming 2-year-old out of the church. My church didn’t want a Facebook page until I pointed out that most of our young people were on Facebook, and if we didn’t put a message out, someone else would. Now we have a Facebook page, a solid following, and another way to build our community.

We cannot afford to simply conserve. It is not enough to just reside in the world, protect what we have and hope someone doesn’t come and upset our little piece of the world. Someone IS going to upset it, whether they come rioting in the streets, stabbing people on the train, or coming for your kids in school. Most of our elected Republicans lack the spinal cord to promise anything but a return to what used to be, which is pointless. We aren’t going back to the age of steam, the 1950s, the Victorian era, or any previous time. Birth control pills, social media, and all the recent advances in technology won’t disappear. Instead of wishing for things the way they were in the past, lawmakers need to push for their own version of progress. Since they seem void of ideas, here are my proposals that would make 2024 a far better year for Republican progressives:

1. 100% free adoption for any unwanted pregnancy. Fund the health care, maternity leave and all adoption costs. We have so many willing families that end up adopting kids overseas due to the legal and funding hurdles associated with adopting American babies.
2. End Daylight Savings Time. We already have states that don’t follow it. End it in the U.S. permanently.
3. Eliminate Physical Education in schools, bring back driving class, home economics and shop class. I mean seriously, physical education is a joke. Just drop it already. Kids need to learn how to drive, balance a checkbook, cook a meal, and build things with their hands. Boys and Girls, we are far better off with more girls knowing how to use a power drill and the more boys knowing how to cook basic meals.
4. Bring back medical billing transparency. This was a pretty big issue that President Trump signed into law, but has gone largely unenforced. We can’t begin to talk about keeping health care costs in check when we have no idea how much it costs in the first place.
5. Turn Social Security into a TSP-like structure. Congress will rob Peter to pay Paul using Social Security unless its changed into a defined contribution plan.
6. Cap Congress Senators and Representatives at 30 total years of service. Seriously, do we need someone hanging around for more than 30 years? After 30 years between the Senate and House, folks need to move on to something else.
7. Legalize marijuana and tax it. It’s fine if the DoD or other places won’t hire if you use drugs, but we’re probably better off just taxing it instead of trying to ban it.

I’m sure there are plenty of other items to add to this list. The point is, rather than trying to return to the mythical “good ole’ days,” we should be pushing for better rules that reflect the reality we are in.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.