One of the things that I was happy to see with this year's campaigns, at least now that we are out of the primaries, is that the use of blatant hate as a tool for winning the presidency was greatly reduced compared to the Rove/Bush elections in the two previous presidential campaigns. Neither of the major party candidates were standing on stage bashing away at a minority group, such as was done towards gays during the Bush campaigns. Not only did they personally stay away from this type of rhetoric, but they kept their campaign's away from it too.
Over the last month however, that has changed in the McCain campaign. Now they have Sarah Palin out there, acting like a junior Bush, trying to stir up hate and fear towards their chosen minority, anyone perceived as different than "Joe the Plummer". As Colin Powell pointed out this weekend, they have also unleashed the surrogates, Republicans in congress, to reinforce the idea of Obama as a "secret Muslim". Indirectly implying that some how being a Muslim automatically disqualifies a person from being a "good American".
I'm beyond sick of hearing hateful speech spew forth from the White House towards various minority groups in order to gain political points. I also have zero tolerance for the idea that some how having either a Muslim or Arab background inherently makes someone unpatriotic.
So I've changed my mind, despite thinking that both Obama's health care plan and judicial choices will be wrong for this country, I would rather have that then the risk of Sarah Palin ending up as President and forcing me to endure eight years of Bush 3.0.
3 comments:
In spite of all my beliefs and banter regarding the futility of the "lesser of two evils" logic, for the sake of addressing my preference when posed with the inevitability of a McCain or Obama presidency I suppose I'll weigh in.
When it comes to your original statement about the appointment of Supreme Court Justices: while it may be true that McCain could have theoretically appointed more conservative judges, I have little faith in his judgment when it comes to appointing constitutional judges, so the point would be moot. While a justice may err on the site of conservatism, if their constitutional foundations are weak they are a liability to the judiciary and the country as a whole.
Now, having said that, I don't think Obama will have any better judgment when it comes to appointing justices. As usual, they're both equally unconstitutional candidates.
Now, when it comes to the economy it's hard to say really who is going to be more damaging. While the concept of Obama's healthcare plan is frightening and disheartening, I think it may theoretically come as a marginal relief, in that while he'll be spending enormous amounts of money we dont have, we'll actually be receiving something for it.
Now, that's not to say that we're receiving anything particularly desirable. If we've learned anything from the government programs currently providing health care, we can expect very little actual relief from ObamaCare.
However, "very little" relief is more than no relief. More than that, "very little" help is better than "quite a bit" of harm. What do I mean by this?
When posed with the question as to what programs or promises he would cut in response to the economic crisis we're facing, Obama quite reluctantly admitted (albeit very quickly and quietly) that he would probably cut some overseas aid.
Now, while my expectations that he will follow through on this to the degree that the non-interventionist in me would like, I think any reduction in foreign aid will be a major blessing to the U.S. for innumerable reasons. Any money that is brought back home from overseas and applied into social programs for home (even ones as ridiculous as socialized healthcare) is a step in the right direction. Besides money, I think a decreased level of intervention in foreign affairs would cut back on many of the unintended consequences Dr. Paul so often referred to in regards to our foreign policy.
In saying all that, I feel the need to make it abundantly clear that I consider this in no way an endorsement for Obama, but rather a realistic statement about the general impact I think either candidate will have on the country if elected.
Didn't mean to be so long winded.. heh.
I spotted a few grammatical errors in my original reply that I can't edit.
When referring to Obama cutting foreign aid, I meant to add that he said that during the first presidential debate.
And when I referred to my expectations of him actually following through on cutting foreign aid, I forgot to make it clear that my expectations are "very low"
Unfortunately there isn't an option to allow for someone to go back an fix their original posts.
As for Senator Obama decreasing the amount of foreign aid, while he may try to lower it to some areas, I think that would be offset by the increase in our military trying to police humanitarian crises, especially in areas such as Darfur.
I also don't see him doing a rational, across the board reduction in the amount of money we send to foreign countries over the course of his Presidency. Something which needs to be started now before the current economic crisis hits "main street" full on and there becomes wide spread political pressure to cut all foreign aid outright, such as what happen to our aid to Germany following WWI.
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