I Think I am Voting for Obama
I am tired of watching the free markets trashed by people who claim to champion capitalism and free enterprise. Better, I am starting to think, to have free markets trashed by someone who does not pretend to support them. Besides, the Republicans in Congress tend to be much stronger supporters of small government, low taxes, and light regulation when they are in opposition. Except possibly for Jeff Flake, who always seems to have his head in the right place.
Update:
"When
it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some other country where
they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance,
where despotism can be taken pure, without the base alloy of hypocrisy."-- Abraham Lincoln
Craig:
You might want to consider how Obama will trash the Supreme Court, too.
September 25, 2008, 2:49 pmMike:
While McCain is certainly not at the top of my list of capitalism heavyweights, I fear you'll rue the day you voted for Obama if he becomes president. Sort of like voting for Lenin because Kerensky wasn't perfect.
September 25, 2008, 2:52 pmMethinks:
Sort of like voting for Lenin because Kerensky wasn't perfect.
Exactly.
With Obama in the White House and the Democrats controlling congress, the Republicans are going to be doing exactly nothing. McCain will become a free market supporter just to disagree with Dems and play to the libertarians in his own party.
September 25, 2008, 3:30 pmDr. T:
I understand your sentiments, but what happens if the Democrats get a majority in both houses of Congress? (If not now, then perhaps in the 2010 election.) Congress would likely enact at least half of Obama's half-baked ideas. Then we'd be up shit creek with no paddle and a leaky boat.
September 25, 2008, 4:55 pmSandy:
Look deeper into one-world-under-Obama. Compare to the U.S. Constitution. It is difficult to believe that when you research the facts on his world view, healthcare policies, economic policies and social policies, as well as you research the climate science, that you would actually consider voting for him.
September 25, 2008, 5:17 pmDavid:
Why not vote for Bob Barr, instead? If it's going to be a protest vote, make it one that everyone interprets correctly, not one that makes them think Americans want *more* socialism than McCain is offering. Ideally, Barr ends up with more votes than the difference in the parties.
September 25, 2008, 5:33 pmElamBend:
Warren,
September 25, 2008, 6:34 pmI understand where you are coming from. At this point, I feel like all four candidates are idiots. This whole situation makes me want to puke and yet I see many of the people responsible for this debacle talking about how they are going to 'fix' it. The presidential election seems like a sideshow to me now.
I'm not one for paranoia, but this could be a close run thing. At best we are facing a tough, probably long recession. It could get much worse, as in Argentina bad.
Valens:
Though I certainly don't think tat McCain is unintelligent, or that Obama is a genius, it would be far better in present world environment to have an idiot who fights tooth and nail honestly for anything than a duplicitous genius.
September 25, 2008, 7:30 pmElamBend:
Valens,
I agree, I was being overly hyperbolic.
That being said:
September 25, 2008, 8:27 pmhttp://tjic.com/?p=9900
ArtD0dger:
You should be embarrassed to even be considering voting for any politician. Personally, I only ever vote against them. I find that this formulation reduces emotional revulsion and usually makes the choice obvious, if not satisfying.
September 25, 2008, 10:37 pmtomw:
Why not vote FOR Palin???
tom
September 26, 2008, 3:48 amDreamLiner:
Yikes! That's like saying I'm voting for Stalin because I don't like Chamberlain
September 26, 2008, 6:02 amBilly Beck:
You people have been voting for the lesser of two evils for so long that evil is all that's left, now.
I wish I could feel sorry for you, but I don't.
September 26, 2008, 6:19 amJoshK:
We're just screwed either way. We're going down the same path as Latin America. More windfall profit taxes to come....
September 26, 2008, 9:02 amArtD0dger:
On the contrary, selecting the least bad is formally indistinguishable from selecting the most good. I'm not trying to be hip and cynical like Billy Beck, I simply decline to invest emotionally in politicians and risk committing the error of adopting their views rather than them mine (weak as that latter mechanism may be).
September 26, 2008, 9:10 amBrandon:
I have begun to think the exact same thing.
September 26, 2008, 11:09 amThe other coyote:
I'm with Valens. I spent some time around McCain in the mid-1990's and while I thought he was kind of an ass#$%^, he was at least sincere - even when he was absolutely, positively wrong.
Which was, oddly enough, refreshing.
September 26, 2008, 4:00 pmDavid Johnson:
Your vote doesn't matter. Seriously. Stop believing those PSAs and MTV commercials. As an individual your vote is meaningless. Voting is not a market, you voice does not count because it is drowned out by everyone else.
So stop deciding whether to vote for Obama or McCain, Stalin or Hitler. Vote for Barr instead. Your vote still won't make a difference, but if you're going to vote, at least vote for someone who doesn't fit into the "lesser evil" cubbyhole.
September 28, 2008, 9:58 amDennis:
Dear Mr. Meyer:
Please don't. You know better. It just hurts. Even NPR was pointing out his qualifications last week as someone who really is more qualified because,"he's been campaigning for 1 1/2 years and you learn a lot that way."
Can you live with that kind of a puppet? He would be worse than Bush!
From johnrlot.blogspot.com, I found these two gems:
Do you think that Obama supporters will get this joke?
I may have given away too much in the headline. I wrote Jeff back saying that I think a lot of Obama supporters would read this and think that this letter makes perfect sense:
Can't Afford
I was planning on voting for Sen. John McCain, but given his vice-presidential pick, I'm voting for Sen. Barack Obama instead. As a nation, we simply can't afford to have an inexperienced, unqualified political neophyte one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. We need an inexperienced, unqualified political neophyte in the Oval Office.
JEFF BISHOP
Winston-Salem
BLANKLEY on media bias
September 28, 2008, 9:01 pmTony Blankley has this piece in the Washington Times:
The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight out propagandists for the Obama campaign. While they have been liberal and blinkered in their worldview for decades, in 2007-08 for the first time, the major media are consciously covering for one candidate for president and consciously knifing the other. This is no longer journalism — it is simply propaganda. (The American left-wing version of the Volkischer Beobachter cannot be far behind.) And as a result, we are less than seven weeks away from possibly electing a president who has not been thoroughly and even half way honestly presented to the country by our watchdogs — the press. . . .
tehag:
"When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some other country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
Wow. Lincoln sure got that one wrong. It's despotism, all right, but its price is the sale of one's integrity-to wit: it is required to pay obeisance to official morality which is known and felt to be false. Read de Custine on the behavior of officials, court, and czar. Within sixty years the pretenses of Communism made every Russian a hypocrite.
September 29, 2008, 11:05 pm