In an effort to A. not spend large amounts of time arguing with people on the internet & B. not get inordinately angry at stupid people on the internet, I'm trying to avoid posting in political threads here and elsewhere. But, that admirable self restraint is creaking under the influence of foolish people making silly arguments. So, as a way of venting without becoming embroiled in the online equivalent of a land war in Asia, here are my thoughts on this political season.
GOP primaries: it's currently a four man race, and I'll get to the candidates in a second. But first, can I just say that a great argument for the Republicans being unqualified to govern is the idiotic way they go about choosing a candidate. It's like they are trying to find a way to best ensure the eventual nominee is the least conservative. The Democrats assume that minorities, union workers, .gov sector workers etc will always vote for them no matter who they put up. The GOP assumes the same about everyone else. Why is that?
For all the big talk, the vast majority of all poli-critters both R & D are just that: career politicians who make bank playing both sides against the middle but who would never intentionally kill the golden goose and shrink Leviathan.
Speaking of career poli-critters, let's look at the candidates.
Mitt Romney.
Pros: nice family, fancy hair, appeals to the sort of "conservatives" who work at MSNBC and the NY Times, polls great with NorthEastern Ivy League credentialists, anointed the Chosen One by the Good Ole Boys club of the Republican establishment machine, and is enough of a moral vacuum we might be able to pressure him into not being totally evil.
Cons: flips more than a dolphin at Sea World, most easily told apart from John Kerry by his lack of military service, loathed by the majority of the GOP base, passed the bill that was the model for Obama Care (and continues to defend it, the one thing he hasn't flip-flopped on), lies about having been on all sides of every major issue, is the perfect caricature of the out of it rich white guy scamming the system for Obama to run against, very pro big fed.gov just wants to run it more efficiently, connects with the voters about as well as Daleks connect with the Doctor, and may not be able to pass a Turing test.
Newt Gingrich.
Pros: good at laying the smack down in debates, certainly knows how to play the game in DC, we might get moon colonies!, is sometimes honest about his flip flops, and appeals to the national sense of "honestly repent and you can get a second chance."
Cons: very pro big government as long as he's able to run it, egomaniacal narcissist, enough baggage to ballast the Titanic, generally slimy and as crazy as the media always claims Ron Paul is.
Rick Santorum.
Pros: appeals to social conservatives, great pro life record, and draws the most sympathy for the media attacking him unfairly (ie the google problem and attacking the way he mourned his dead son).
Cons: the google problem, massive authoritarian streak (even if it is wildly exaggerated by the media), strongest on the issues that are least important to many people this cycle.
Ron Paul.
Pros: the only candidate who isn't a vile and loathsome excuse for a human being, the sort of zealot True Believer who isn't just working the system to gain power, %95 of his positions fire up the base and resonate with libertarians as well as both social and fiscal conservatives, the only candidate who would actually reduce the size and scope of fed.gov instead of slowing growth slightly and calling it a cut.
Cons: comes off like a crazy old man, attracts hordes of fanatics who turn undecided folks off by their very rabidness, that %5 makes a lot of people hate him on a gut level, both the "conservative" and liberal media are on a 24/7 smear campaign, knows he won't get the nomination and is just trying to get enough influence to steer the party libertarian and set up his son for a later run, and would most likely be assassinated if he actually won the presidency.
So, tl:dr I hate all of the candidates with a realistic shot at winning the nomination. So, will I be holding my nose and voting "Anybody but Obama"?
Here are my thoughts on that. We, as a nation, have reached critical mass. We are officially past the tipping point where we can muddle along and pretend like borrowing ever larger amounts of money to fund every more inclusive socialism is sustainable. The country is bankrupt, and we'll collapse unless very drastic measures are taken and soon. None of the remaining candidates but RP would do anything even beginning to resemble that, and as I said even Ron Paul knows he won't be getting the nod. Still, any of the R's would at least destroy the country slightly more slowly right? I don't think so, and we really only need to look at Bush the Younger and Clinton to see why.
Remember when I said most poli-critters don't want to change the status quo or shrink fed.gov? When we had the House, Senate, and Presidency government exploded. Both invasive expansion of the police state (Patriot Act, Homeland Security) and increasing welfare and social meddling (Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind) as well as horrific Constitutional violations like McCain Feingold (which Bush explicitly stated he thought was unConstitutional, just before signing it) were the name of the game. Since most politicians want to expand the fed.gov, and most politicians vote along party lines most of the time we can see that the PotUS being aligned with majorities in the Legislative branch makes things worse. But look at Clinton: horrid President but a R Congress fighting him tooth and nail actually managed to make some small gains.
I honestly think a strongly Tea Party Congress paired with the proven ineffectual Obama would do the least damage to the country. But I don't believe we'll get that sort of Congress.
Alexis de Tocqueville says it all in my opinion.
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
―Democracy in America
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
America doesn't have a governmental problem. America has a societal problem, and the government reflects that. Americans are getting the government they deserve, good and hard. And if you don't believe national character makes a difference, look at the EU. What separates Germany from the PIIGS? Not natural resources or opportunity, but culture.
And above all else ours is a culture that venerates two things. Finding pleasure, and escaping consequences for your actions. We've incurred a level of debt (both at all levels of .gov and in housing/student loans/personal credit) that is literally unprecedented in history. We want all the toys and we don't want to wait. We've devalued the family by encouraging extended adolescence, vilifying responsibility, attacking men for being masculine and women for being feminine, and trying to divorce sex from relationship.
America has slaughtered 50,000,000 innocent children on the alter of avoiding the consequences of our actions. Our genocide is more bloody by far than the Nazis, and we did it not on the grounds of saving the species or necessity but out of convenience. How can a society like that survive?
It can't. If there is to be any hope of avoiding the on coming Dark Ages, it lies in a revolution of culture not of government. DC is a vile, rotten swamp not because it stands in opposition to our character, but because it reflects it. God help us all.
