I am a registered Republican with strong Libertarian tendencies. I was originally excited to see that McCain was running for President. I had actually liked him when he ran against Bush.
I could not vote for him this time around, though. For several reasons.##The GOP Has Been Hijacked##
I think my party is being plundered by pirates. I don’t really know how or why it happened, although a good friend points to it starting back in the Nixon era.
There are a couple of things that I take issue with.
I think that the party is too close with the “Religious Right.” I am not a fundamentalist, and I don’t believe in a black-and-white world of right and wrong. I do believe in God and that He is all powerful, so who I am to limit that power and judge who and what?
For more on the close linkage read this little gem.
There is also the accusation of Marxism or socialism made from the right towards Obama. So the bailout of the airline industry and then banking under the watch of the GOP. What about that? Here’s a fun read on the socialism claim.
I also think that the GOP is a more organized and more powerful machine. I find party politics in general deeply flawed. You have Presidential candidates (on both sides) who are not in step in their personal beliefs with the party’s platform. This has probably been the case for a long time, but so have party machines.
Bush
I voted for Bush both times. I voted for his father as well. In fact, I went to the 1992 Republican convention in Houston.
I have 2 major issues with Bush:
- Katrina - yes, he should have put his feet on the ground in New Orleans. No, Bush did not screw New Orleans. There are a few layers of (corrupt) government in Louisiana who bear a little more responsibility there than the Federal government.
- Iraq - I don’t fault Bush for following his conscience. I think he truly believes that it is possible to bring peace to the Middle East, and that it is our responsibility to do so. I also think going into Iraq was just plain dumb. There is no winning military situation possible in a reasonable period of time.
Everyone should go get a copy of Three Cups of Tea and read it. Right now. It will change your outlook on that region and the situation over there. Think of what could be if we spent the money that we are spending every month on schools and education. If the power in the region was in moderate schools rather than Madrassas. We would be building a generation of people who have a choice of what to do with their lives. That is not the case today.
Bush is not the worst President in history. He’s one of them, but not the worst. What I find really interesting with that discussion is that beloved Presidents have their hands in some nasty situations. Teddy Roosevelt coerced Harding into the Spanish-American war as an attempted land grab. Kennedy took the US into the first budget deficit since there was such a thing by going into Vietnam. LBJ was a racist bastard, but was cornered into passing civil rights legislation.
Oh yeah - all the wars against the Native Americans, too.
Obama vs. McCain
You know, if Obama had not won the Democratic nomination I would be in a real pickle. I could not, under any circumstance, vote for Hillary. McCain turned into a terrible choice. I find that I tend to agree more with Obama, which works out nicely.
Healthcare. Obama’s healthcare plan appears to make more sense.
Economy. McCain admitted that he doesn’t understand economics as well as he should. The problem is that his advisors are the same people who got us into the mess that we’re in. Those who aren’t in jail as part of that Keating 5 scandal….
Education. A few things here. McCain was not a good student. He was a slick talker, though. He was able to talk his way into the War College after not being admitted. He also, by the way, talked his way onto the mission in Vietnam where he was shot down. He had just recently (by freak accident) bombed his own carrier, and skated to shore (with some reporters) for some R&R while the crew cleaned up. He would have been grounded if he were not the son and grandson of Navy brass.
The second thing is that No Child Left Behind is a terrible idea. Talk to a teacher and see how it works. McCain supports it.
I’m also not so sold on vouchers.
Energy. My dad works for an electric utility, and I have a pretty decent understanding of the subject. Coal is a dirty fuel, but it can be burned cleaner. China is building a coal plant a week, and they are dirty.
Nukes are by far the cleanest, and even National Geographic said as much in a cover story on energy a while back. Think solar is awesome? What do you do with all those massive batteries when they die?
Think ethanol is the wave of the future? It could be, but not from corn. Brazil does it with nearly an order of magnitude more energy efficiency using switch-grass or cane (I don’t remember which). That was another National Geographic article. Corn also requires a lot of fertilizer, which runs off into the water supply. This additional nitrogen causes the algae bloom in the Gulf to be worse, which kills more fish. Thank you NPR for that one.
Conclusion
One last thought to tie a couple of ideas together. Imagine what could have happened if 30 years ago the Federal government had not bailed out Chrysler. Maybe they would have been forced to be competitive with more efficient cars. Maybe that would have caused the market to swing towards better built cars (with better gas mileage) here in the states. Imagine.
I said I had Libertarian tendencies at the top. I generally feel that less government is better, and that less intervention is better. In the end the current President has expanded the government in ways never before seen.
It’s time for a change. That’s why I voted for Obama.