Values mean something

When I was a child I was raised in a home by parents who valued many things.  My dad told my brother and me, time and time again, that "Your word is your bond."  He always believed that if you promise anything, if you give someone your word, it was something you were bound by and you must follow through with whatever was promised.  Keeping your word was a principled, morally correct and ethical thing to do.  My dad lived by those words.

Doing goods things for other people was a very big part of my mom's life.  Every day I was able to observe my mom doing things that not only enriched people's lives but literally saved some lives.  She raised money for charities (the March of Dimes was her special charity), she secured housing, household goods, groceries & jobs for refugees from the Holocaust, she provided an ear for listening to others' tales of woe (and there were many.) And she did all this anonymously.

So, through the years I observed how my parents lived and the good that they were able to do.  My parents didn't have much but they cared about others who had even less. 

Now, the bombshell:  they were Republicans.

If they were alive today they would be horrified at what the Republican party has become:  the party of greed, deceit, fear, hunger for power and money; a party that can be bought, a party with no scruples, the party of exclusion, a party that wants complete control of everyone's lives even though they profess otherwise, a Christian party with all other religions or beliefs delegated to inferior status, a party filled with double-talking hypocrites, a party who hates liberals, homosexuals, immigrants, poor people, people with no jobs, those who have lost their homes, the elderly, the sick, the homeless.  They have no compassion.  They are without a soul.

Yes, my parents, the Republicans, would be horrified.  And if they were alive today, they would be proud Democrats.