If The Far Right Ruled America

In light of what's been going on with Democratic state lawmakers leaving Indiana, Ohio, and particularly Wisconsin to avoid voting on bills that would enact devastating budget cuts and the revoking of union collective bargaining rights, which their Republican counterparts have proposed, I was thinking about what this country would be like if the GOP was the only party, and the far-right factions like the "Tea Party" ruled.

After watching all the news reports on CNN and Headline News and reading all the online stories, I came up with these scenarios...

* Public education would be stripped down to the bare bones in countless places across America to the detriment of the children, because due to the tax cuts that Republicans love to impose, tax revenues that have long funded school budgets have evaporated.

There will be almost literally no art, music, or physical education programs, and very few sports programs. Libraries and school nurses would be pretty much extinct as well (they already are, but that's besides the point).

Not to mention the fact that save for private schools like Stanford and the Ivy League, higher education would be devastated in the form of classes being cut to the point of oblivion and tuition becoming unaffordable to all but the rich, among other things - yes I know that has already happened at schools nationwide, but still...

This scenario is based on one thing:

FAR RIGHT CONSERVATIVES DON'T CARE ABOUT EDUCATION FOR THE NON-RICH. IF THEY DID, WHY ARE SCHOOLS ALWAYS AT THE FOREFRONT OF CUTS?

* Unions would effectively be busted; the Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly have officially passed a bill that would effectively do just that.

Minimum wage would be substantially lowered, if not eliminated all together, which would leave workers at the mercy of the overseer, I mean employer. Regulations would largely be done away with, and work conditions would be putrid as tragedies like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911, which killed 146 women, would rise.

All of this would be done for the benefit of big business corporations, which never has and never will care about worker's prosperity due to their never ending desire for big profits.

In other words, such would be the case because FAR RIGHT CONSERVATIVES DON'T CARE ABOUT LABOR OR THE WORKING CLASS. IF THEY DID, WHY DO THEIR ECONOMIC POLICIES ALWAYS HURT THOSE PEOPLE?

* The environment would be devastated and the green movement would essentially die.

Offshore drilling would be rampant, areas rural and urban alike would be unbearably polluted, as well as lakes, rivers, and the air, and countless people would get cancer, asthma, and other ailments, all due to deregulation, which would free companies to do what they like and pollute all they want - check out the movie Erin Brokovich with Julia Roberts in the title role sometime if you don't believe me.

This would be so because FAR RIGHT CONSERVATIVES DON'T CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT. IF THEY DID, THEY WOULD LEAVE NATURE AND OUR NATURAL RESOURCES ALONE.

* The less fortunate would be in far worse straits than they are now; poverty and homelessness would substantially rise due to the GOP's cuts in safety net social services.

For example, while Governor of California, Ronald Reagan closed all of the state's mental hospitals, which put countless numbers of mentally ill patients out on the street; under right wing rule there would be many more of those and families on the streets and in the shelters - if they were lucky to be accepted in one. Children would be hungrier than ever, and the country would begin to look like a third world nation.

This is based on an online article saying that the GOP desires to cut nearly $1 billion of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids as well as cut funds for programs that help senior citizens; the elderly would suffer, too.

If Republicans had their way, Social Security, Welfare, Head Start (which they want to cut by $1 billion), and other programs of that nature would be a thing of the past, because...

FAR RIGHT CONSERVATIVES DON'T CARE ABOUT POOR PEOPLE. IF THEY DID, THEY WOULD LEAVE THOSE PROGRAMS THAT HELPED THEM ALONE, OR FIND WAYS TO ENHANCE THEM.

* For African Americans and other people of color, the clock would definitely be turned back.

Due to the far right's longtime fervor and crusade against Civil Rights and Affirmative Action, things have already regressed in the form of lower college admission rates, higher unemployment, and more discrimination for blacks and Latinos.

An right wing dominated America would take the situation to extremes, however, as schools, businesses, and neighborhoods would be free to legally re-segregate. Racially restricted covenants, which stipulated that blacks and other non-whites could not live in certain parts of cities and towns - Los Angeles was famous for them through the late 1940s - would return, as would policies barring so-called minorities in various places such as churches and restaurants.

Blatant racism would likewise return, as right wing whites who have long held their tongue would feel freer to speak their mind. Laws banning interracial marriage would reappear, and I wouldn't be surprised to see "Whites Only" signs pop up in bathrooms, water fountains, and in the front part of buses in certain areas of the U.S.

Nor would I be surprised to see some televangelist like Jerry Falwell or radio talk show personality like Rush Limbaugh state on the air that African Americans and Latinos should stay "in their place", to put it politely, and I would not put it past some bigots to utter racial slurs more often, and not have too much reaction to it; the N-word was said on a campus broadcast at the University of California, San Diego in 2010.

Of course the far right will point to people like Michael Steele, Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly and the Tea Party's Herman Cain as proof that they are not racists. What they don't understand, however, is that those four individuals are blacks who have essentially turned against, and care little about, their community, thus they are not really considered "black" by other African Americans.

And don't even get me started on the Latino immigration issue. Under the far right anyone with dark skin and a Spanish surname will be suspected as an illegal immigrant - they already are in Arizona since the passage of that law last year - and would be treated accordingly, even if they re U.S. citizens who were born in this country.

The root of this madness is a simple one:

FAR RIGHT CONSERVATIVES DON'T CARE ABOUT PEOPLE OF COLOR, BLACKS OR OTHERWISE, DESPITE THE PRESENCE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA - HIS ELECTION HAS ONLY INCREASED THEIR RESENTMENT. IF THEY DID CARE, SO-CALLED MINORITIES WOULD NOT HAVE SUFFERED UNDER REAGAN AND BOTH BUSHES.

* Women's rights would be obliterated under a far right dominated America.

Roe vs. Wade, the landmark ruling granting a women's right to choose whether or not to terminate her pregnancy, would definitely be overturned, thus returning women to the back alleys and greatly increasing their risk of death. According to an online article, Republicans in South Dakota's legislature proposed a bill that would make it OK to kill abortion providers, and the GOP congressmen in Washington have a bill allowing hospitals to let women die rather than perform life-saving abortions.

Those bills would become law in a far right U.S.

Also, due to the right wing mindset that a woman's place is in the home with the kids and in the kitchen, funding for programs such as preschools would cease, as it has in Maryland when Republicans there cut funding for a low income preschool program there.

And of course salary and career options would lessen dramatically.

Rape would be redefined as well, as according to an article on Move On.org, "A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking and domestic violence to 'accuser' ". In short, under the far right rapists, stalkers and wife beaters would feel freer to commit their crimes, and prosecution would be tougher as the burden of proof would be put on the victim even more.

The bottom line here is that in a far right America, women's rights would be set back 60 and 70 years, because...

FAR RIGHT CONSERVATIVES DON'T CARE ABOUT THE EQUALITY OF WOMEN, BECAUSE THEY FEEL THAT WOMEN ARE NOT TRULY EQUAL AND SHOULD BE KEPT, LIKE BLACKS AND LATINOS, "IN THEIR PLACE".

Being the non-conservative African American that I am, this is purely my opinion and vision of what America would be like under the sole rule of far right-wing Republicans.

The only people who would benefit from these scenarios would be rich conservative whites and those people of color who embrace far right values to the detriment of their communities; everyone else would suffer.

I know that many will vehemently disagree with these views, but I see it as something to consider in the 2012 elections.

Which are just around the corner.