To find out, start by looking at North Carolina. Diane Ravitch reports, “In 2010, Republicans swept control of the Legislature in North Carolina for the first time in a century. Two years later, a Republican governor was elected. Since then, the Republicans have sought to shred any safety net for anyone who needed it.” Click the link in this paragraph to read the rest. It’s much worse than you might think.
What is happening in North Carolina is the perfect far-right conservative storm to destroy the United State if the GOP continues to add states to its list and seats in both Houses of the U.S. Congress. If the GOP wins the presidential election in 2016 and keeps both Houses of Congress along with its current five seat conservative majority in the Supreme Court, what is happening in North Carolina will repeat across the country in every state. America will become the House of Punishment and prison populations will soar along with more laws designed to send people to those prisons for longer sentences. If you think America is a free country, then why are so many Americans in prison—the U.S. is ranked number one? Guess who is #2 and #3. Click the link in this paragraph to find out.
For instance, who started the war on drugs? A GOP president. His name was Richard Nixon, the only president of the United States to resign from office to avoid facing impeachment. In the late 1970s, under President Carter, a Democrat, drug arrests fell. But the overall trend starting in the 1980s was upward with increased arrests. Who was the GOP president during the 1980s—one guess?
Under GOP President George H. W. Bush, who was president from 1989 to 1993, drug arrests climbed again, and then under Clinton they fluctuated, but under President G. W. Bush, arrests started to climb again. Drug arrests in 2006, were 3.25 times what they were in 1980.
Imagine, ending up in prison because of an addiction that is a disease.
What Is Drug Addiction?
Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences to the addicted individual and to those around him or her. Although the initial decision to take drugs is voluntary for most people, the brain changes that occur over time challenge an addicted person’s self-control and hamper his or her ability to resist intense impulses to take drugs. – Drug Abuse.gov
This is a preview of our world if the GOP rules the United States without the possibility of compromise—a world where women can go to prison for taking pain killers when they are pregnant, and that is already happening in some states dominated by the GOP.
Take a Valium, Lose Your Kids, Go to Jail – propublica.org
In Alabama—a state dominated by the GOP—anti-drug fervor and abortion politics have turned a meth-lab law into the country’s harsher weapons against pregnant women.
Other States that Take a Hard Line:
- South Carolina – 100% GOP dominated
- Tennessee – 100% GOP dominated
- Wisconsin – 100% GOP dominated
The GOP will win if too many registered Democrats and independent voters do NOT vote, because that is the reason the GOP has been winning elections in recent years—not because the majority of Americans are voting for far-right conservatives. Voters also have to be aware of fake Democrats running for election. Some of them are neo-liberals, and it is arguable that only fools and ignorant people vote for neo-liberals.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy followed by his award winning memoir Crazy is Normal.
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Lloyd Lofthouse 
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