It would seem that the big tent has become a shoe box if one is to believe that Republican’s in South Dakota actually think that Stace Nelson’s…er  South Dakota GOP’ers… GOP purity test actually means anything in the grand scheme of things.

For those living under a rock in the Black Hills somewhere, a new site recently popped up that applies some magical formula to a somewhat limited number of bills worked on last session, throws the results in a hat, and pulls out a ranking of South Dakota legislator’s GOPness. The results that show that Stace Nelson and Betty Olson score the highest aren’t necessarily surprising if you look deeper into who might be behind the purity test but also show what is happening in politics these days.

Believe it or not just a few short years ago I actually considered myself to be a Republican and was registered and proud to call myself one for close to 25 years, then something happened. The Republican Party became more about religious morality and less about personal freedom. It became more about pandering to big business than properly funding our future.

It became the “My way or the highway” party.

Do you believe that a family shouldn’t have to pay up to 1/3 or more of their income just to have health insurance if they can even afford it at all? Do you believe that a woman should have some say so over her body? Do you think that business shouldn’t be able to do whatever they want and that the government should have at least some oversight? If so forget it, you’re a RINO or worse yet, a Marxist Liberal who hates America. And don’t even talk to me about how you are thought of if you are gay or even worse, an Atheist (gasp!).

Further making the point of the GOP’s growing unwillingness to allow compromise, you have people like lobbyist and Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist and his ”Taxpayer Protection Pledge”. Norquist has gotten over 270 Republican’s to sign a no tax pledge that promises that the signer’s will never vote to allow any raising of taxes under penalty of career suicide. Want to know why our Congress can’t do anything to create jobs or lower the deficit? Start right there…

I have no doubt that many in the Republican party will say that sticking to ones ideals is something that they should be proud of and those that do so should be praised. I will not argue that point I guess but the problem is an individual’s ideals are rarely shared completely by a majority of our country and an unwillingness to compromise will eventually lead to what we have now. People seemingly more worried about the purity of an individual when compared to an idealized set of ideas than they are about the real world effectiveness of the ideas themselves.

Who cares if we become a 3rd world country with 20% unemployment, at least we did so without raising taxes!

Back in my Republican days I used to have a problem with people that would call me a RINO or other supposed derogatory term when my beliefs didn’t mesh within the big tent they worked so hard to shrink. I don’t anymore but then again as a registered Independent I am free to pick and choose what I feel are the best of all worlds and even, paradise forbid, change my mind when I find a better idea. Believe it or not I can do all this without having to worry about it being against some arbitrary platform and maybe best of all, no one is going to call me an IINO.

Obviously to a lessor degree I am sure this problem exists within the Democratic party as well but living in the Democrat black hole  also known as South Dakota and never really considering myself as a Democrat (though many I am sure would disagree) it is less apparent to me. Our state’s Democrat’s can stick to their idealism all they want and it will have little effect because they have no power so compromise with the GOP isn’t an option. We don’t really have a Democratic Party here, it’s more like a “Democratic Wake” and on the national level I just don’t see them having the organization to get a majority to agree on anything without some sort of compromise, even with the White House trying to pull the strings.

So Republican’s, feel free to stick to your guns. Eventually your tunnel vision will likely alienate enough of your ranks that a 2 man pup tent will seem spacious. When and if that day comes, a President like Obama will actually look appealing compared to what you’ll have then but let’s hope it happens sooner than later. I’d hate to spend my retirement years working as a greeter at Walmart to supplement what’s left of my underfunded pension plan and the demise of Social Security and Medicare.