Ideology is a system of ideas and ideals, especially one in which form the basis of economic or political policy.
Brief history of the Republican and Democratic party’s views on welfare.
According to the Republican Party, religious charities play an important role in the promotion and propagation of societal welfare. Similarly, they also believe that charities and other benevolent organizations are helpful in fostering welfare and patriotism. Therefore, to promote such organizations the party supports their exemption from taxes and non-tax deductible donations to these organizations.
In keeping with the Republican Party’s view toward welfare, President Bush promoted the work of neighborhood and faith-based charities and introduced the Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, which coordinates local and state efforts with federal efforts to give every organization access to government grants so that they can keep up with secular organizations.
However, the party believes that all organizations that contribute toward community welfare should be given help when needed, and some should not be denied this help because they display a religious symbol and have a religious mission statement or leader on their board.
The Democratic party’s views on welfare revolve around a Keynesian approach, meaning that demand dictates economic growth, and the federal government should use its power to spur said demand when necessary.
Examples of this approach include: President Lyndon Johnson using the expanded role of government in his Great Society program to institute civil rights reforms for African-Americans and women; the 1964 Voting Rights Act and the 1965 Civil Rights Act outlawing discriminatory voting tactics and prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color and gender respectively. President Johnson also created the Medicare Act of 1965, perhaps the signature act of this movement from the Democratic Party. These are different political parties with contradictory ideological philosophies. They viewed the welfare problems of their country from different angles and perspectives thereby providing a solution based on their various standpoints.
Gone are those days when Nigerian political parties such as the late sage’s UPN beliefs in socialism where the government was going to use state resources to provide cross-cutting social services, while the NPN would allow a greater participation of private initiative and resources in providing social services, thus espousing a pro-capitalist ideology.
As of today, this present republic vaguely, it is pathetically realistic to say that “no political party represents a unique, unprecedented and truly credible hope for our future advancement as a country.”
Unlike the United States which will require a rigorous process should the Republican and Democratic parties decide to merge or form a coalition government for their contradictory ideologies, ours will require a simple and flexible process which can be concluded on a telephone conversation by both lootocrat leaders, this is as a result of the common ideology of dividing the so called National Cake through propaganda.
Our political parties has no ideology of governance, hence, “a political party without an ideology is a loot sharing organization of double faced men and women of doom that is not worth being referred to as a political party let alone of attaining political power,” A political party without an ideology is the same as a traveller without a definite destination and a visitor who wants anything for entertainment. The former lands anywhere, good or bad while the latter ends up with nothing tangible.
These is our pathetic state here in Nigeria.
– Adeyemi Babarinde Sunday writes from Odo Ere, Kogi State.
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