Don’t take this post as any capitulation on my part regarding John McCain - not yet anyway.
I am angry. I’m not angry at John McCain - he is what he is. I am angry at the Republican party. I think our party is selling our ideals out for the sake of seats on committees. Now, I am watching “respected conservatives” selling those same ideals out and it makes me wonder. Am I wrong? Did I miss something in Conservatism 101? I don’t think so, but it’s possible.
At the same time, I am much encouraged by the tossup states for the upcoming Senate races. Encouraged enough to think the next president is going to be fairly ineffective in taking the country any further to the left in the coming four years. The House will probably stay Democrat controlled, but the Senate is a good start.
These are the things which uphold my decision - to date - not to support John McCain. And it is my decision, so Neal Boortz can kiss my grits. I am tired of people not in the Republican party telling Republicans why they should accept something outside of Republican ideals. I and others who think like me are going to change this party - not abandon it. You can call our thinking on this asinine if that floats your stick, but this is not your fight. This is our family feud.
Which brings me full circle, doesn’t it? What is the most effective way to be agents of the kind of change our party needs? We either support McCain and then fight him tooth and nail when he wins or we don’t support him and fight Hillary Obama.
McCain has been offering a lot of promises to garner the conservative vote and I don’t believe a word of it. We know what Hillary Obama is all about. No way they get my vote. Yet, do I overcome my ambivalence toward McCain - suck it up and drive on?
Well, this brings me to something I have been talking about for a couple of years. I think I got the idea from Cobb, but it immediately made sense and it grew on me. You see, the thing with all of us conservatives is very passionate right now and that might not change. But we’re going to get in a voting booth in November and we will be given a binary choice - zero or one. When you are in that mode - decision time, make or break - all of the emotion is gone. All of the angst is irrelevant. You will decide based upon what is in the core of your mind - survival. If you are a liberal, most of your survival instinct is already gone, so don’t try to understand this.
Hillary Obama will shrink America’s relevance and hard-won gains in the war on terror. They will lead our nation to the largest military cuts in history and laud over it. They will open us to more attacks abroad and prey on weaker Americans by creating more government dependency at home. They will work hard to make sure no one ever has the ability to get as rich as they are, because that’s what modern day “progressive” ideology is all about.
I know in my heart that John McCain is a poor choice for America on so many issues - maybe all of them - except one. He won’t let America roll over and die.
I am still a Maverick Voter - I’ll make my decision closer to November.
Subscribe to NPI
Joel, I fully understand how you feel. I think that many of my liberal friend (all two of them) felt the same way when our choice was Kerry or Bush. Kerry did not fit the ticket of what I wanted out of a president and Bush certainly did not. I, like a lot of Americans are tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. When your only option is to go to the other side or put in someone that doesn’t believe in the same values as you but is still from your party what kind of choice is that? I of course voted with my party because at the time I was looking for anything better that what we had but I am glad the dems didn’t win that round. Not because I think that Bush did a better job than Kerry would have done but because now I have a candidate that I believe in for the first time in my life.
As for McCain. I certainly don’t want him in office but if it comes down to him or Hillary my thinking will need to be reviewed carefully before making a decision.
As for Obama or Hillary shrinking the control of this country and leading us down a path which will put us in the dark ages I don’t see that happening. Bush has done a great job of alienating the rest of the world and we aren’t in a dark ages yet so I doubt some liberals who are trying to make friends with the world will make us any worse.
Our military budget beats all others in the world and will continue to do so for years to come. Even if a drastic cut takes place -which I am sure the right side won’t let happen either way- we will still have the largest military in the world. Maybe China has more troops but who has the aircraft carriers? Iraq has caused our military to be overstretched on the world playing field and once we can bring those troops home we will again have enough to maintain the policing force role that the world has become accustomed to us playing.
I think that if anyone thinks Obama or Hillary will let the country roll over and die they may want to rethink what it means to be patriotic. I believe that they will do what they feel is best for the country just like McCain would do and Bush has done. I do not agree with the path our country has been on but I do feel that Bush has done what he felt was right. It sure got us into some scrapes and made much of the world hate us but he was doing what he felt was right. I think that all of the candidates are doing what they feel is best for the country. Not one of them would let the USA roll over and die. If they even started down that path our constitution gives us the right to bear arms for just this reason. It would be the people’s responsibility to overthrow that government and rebuild it anew. We are a long long way from that though.
I was in Portugal last year and had some great conversations with the locals. The best one I had was in a pub with a banker. He made a point to me that has stuck with me since. He said “One thing Americans don’t seem to realize about September 11th is that it was not just them that was attacked that day. It was the American way of life which is also Europe’s way of life and most of the worlds. It was an attack on the world as a whole.” Sure we are the ones who got hit and then went over and tried to clean up the pieces but it was the civilized world as a whole that was attacked.
How much security do you want? Every time I hear the word security now I ask myself “What freedom am I losing today?” Right now I am more concerned about losing the freedoms I have, than being attacked by terrorists. Every right we lose must be earned back through blood. Those rights were earned in blood long ago and to give them away with a simple pen belittles our forefathers deaths. How many did we lose with the patriot act all in the name of security? Will we ever get those rights back? If we are giving away rights and freedoms out of fear then the terrorists have already won. (FYI while I was in Portugal they lost 8 soldiers in Iraq and Spain lost 12, we rarely hear about this in our news. Instead most of us think we are doing it all alone.)
I look forward to living in a country that is not ruled by fear again. I think that all of the candidates left in the game feel this same way and I don’t doubt their beliefs that they will do right for the country. I do not question their sincerity but I do questions their plans on how to bring about the changes needed. It is a shame we need such a large military. That money could be so better spent educating the country and saving the planet but the world is full of dumb asses and we are bound to find more.
Personally I think that Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Osama should all have been taken care of with a few dollars worth of bullets and a few black ops teams. That, to me, seems like a better plan than all of the military personnel of our country that we have now traumatized by war. All of our young men and women who are now coming home less than whole missing limbs and friends. There is also the matter of the civilian lives our bombs have destroyed. There is also the international faith in the USA to do what is right that we lost and of course the rights and freedoms we will have to fight to get back.
I don’t doubt that each person is doing what they feel is right for the country even if they are wrong. I think the time for the right decisions were lost to us 7 years ago when our president rather than uniting us, took away rights and freedoms and told us to shop to save the country. We will never get that chance again so I am voting for the candidate that can unite us in a positive way rather than the one that tells us this is how it has to be.