Posted by
Old Bill on Monday, November 03, 2008 8:25:14 PM
Life is full of many duties and dilemmas. For most of us, choosing between two candidates when we don't really like either one is a dilmma, and many of us feel like saying 'The hell with 'em both! A pox on both their houses!' Some of us don't even want to go to the trouble of going to the polls when the candidate of our party, or the one we normally vote for, is repugnant to us. But this is a mistake. Always.
Someone once said that war is politics carried on by other means; come to think of it, it was Karl von Clausewitz. If this is true--and it is--it follows that politics is also war carried on by other means, and sometimes by the same means. War is a struggle for mastery over others, posession of their property and the power to kill them, on one side, and resistance to this aggression on the other side. Politics, when conducted by decent people in a democratic system, abjures these goals and confines itself to the contest for positions in government which allow the winner to make policies and decisions that decide the law and the future for all the people in the country.
As long as everyone agrees to limit the power of the government over the people, and accepts the principle that people have inalienable rights that government must respect, the contest for these positions is limited to a struggle for control of the government's money and the goodies that go with high office. But when someone refuses to recognize the limits on government's power and insists that government has the right to do anything it can persuade a judge to approve, or a majority of legislators to vote for, without limit, then we are in trouble.
Arrogant politicians may even attempt to rule by fiat without even a legislative majority. As George Stephanopolis said of Pres. Bill Clinton's use of executive orders in wholly outrageous ways: "Stroke of the pen--law of the land--kinda cool." We must remember that as George Washington said, "Government, like fire, is a dangerous tool, and a fearful master."
We are thus confronted with a dilemma far more serious than merely the question of which party will get the goodies for the next 4 years; our lives, our children's lives, and our nation's future are all at stake in this and every election. We dare not indulge ourselves in a fit of anger because our party failed to nominate its best candidate. We must ask what is likely to happen, what might happen, if this or the other man is elected. Too much is at stake to stay at home and cut our nose off to spite our face.
The differences between McCain and Obama are huge and obvious. One man has proven his devotion to our country and his willingness to sacrifice any personal safety or advantage in order to do his duty to defend us and the freedoms which the United States represents. His courage cannot be questioned. His loyalty and decency are undoubted.
Obama, on the other hand, is a man whose own autobiography testifies to his affinity for those who were Marxists or who identified themselves as rebels against American society and its historic values, while embracing a fundamentally racist philosophy in the 'Black Liberation Theology' of his spiritual mentor of 20+ years, Jeremiah Wright--a racist dogma still embraced by his successor at the Obamas' church in Chicago, the Trinity United Church of Christ.
Obama openly proclaims his intention to redistribute wealth among Americans, and between Americans and the world, denouncing us for "...driving SUVs, eating whatever we want, and keeping our thermostats set at 72 degrees...". He berates Americans who he accuses of '...clinging to their guns and religion...' as though those were traits of evil, and further slanders them by accusing them of being racists and xenophobes.
This politician, the product of the corrupt Cook County Democrat Party machine whose infamous vote-fraud in 1960 stole the election in Illinois, and thus the USA for John Kennedy, now plans to treat all America to a repeat of election fraud on a grand scale, as evidenced by the massive voter-registration crimes committed by his old ally and employer, ACORN. This is a real threat not just to our foreign and economic policies for the next 4 years, but to our very democratic political system, now and forever.
We Americans of all parties or no party must turn out tomorrow and ensure the election of a president and a Congress who will respect our constitution and our rights, and who understand the real dangers and enemies that threaten us not with mere rhetoric, but with real and deadly weapons, and who dream---as Ayatollah Ahmedinejad of Iran has admitted---of "...a world without the United States of America...".
This is the President of Iran who Barack Obama is eager to talk to without any preconditions, blithely assuring us that "...Iran is a small country..." that can do us no harm--even as he stands idly by while allowing them to acquire atomic bombs.
For all these reasons, and dozens besides, responsible voters will turn out to vote for a leader and a party who will respect our rights and protect us for the next four years---years during which we patriotic conservatives must take over the GOP and make it a party which will nominate a true 'Reaganesque' conservative in the future. Likewise, patriotic liberals must take back the Democratic party from the America-hating leftists who now run it, and nominate, in four years, a patriotic liberal, whether a 'Humphry' or a 'McGovern'. This is our American duty.