After waiting in line for almost 3 hours and having the experience of voting in a third world country (There were people who couldn't read and people helped them vote - not a trained election volunteer, mind you - just a friend who was reading and explaining the ballot and maybe making sure that they voted the right way), I had the sudden picture of what would happen if McCain won. Just as the mortgage boondoggle has been blamed on the Republicans, everything that was going wrong would be blamed on McCain. Without any consistent position to defend nor the personality for consistency, McCain would certainly have done even more muddling damage to the cause of freedom. I did vote, but it was all I could do to keep from running from the room.
Obama has worked to place himself at the center and not be too radical, which is his past. Now that he has been elected, the jubilation wears off and things get serious, where do you think he will go when he gets serious? I don't see that it can be anywhere but to those socialist/Marxist community organizing ideas which have been his love for over 20, almost 30, years. Those things which he believes in are not going to suddenly disappear. This is and remains my concern about Obama.
My hope is that he be consistent and clearly advocates his non-freedom ideas. This will give new life and new meaning in today's terms to the eternal truths of individual rights and political freedom. As his ideas are seen for what they really are, a new opening for freedom becomes possible. The public voices who love freedom, understand the ideas of freedom and can present them effectively will be able, against the background of an Obama presidency, show the difference. I fully expect the opportunity to be there before long - within the first 100 days.
Who those public voices are, I don't know. The times will call them forth. They will be heard unless free speech is removed as a right of individuals.
Freedom is dead; long live freedom.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
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The best comment I've seen so far today that helps put things in perspective comes from Reason's Nick Gillespie:
I suspect that the toughest thing to figure out about this election is simply the fact that, with the possible exception of single-payer healthcare, virtually every scare scenario you can generate about Obama (many with good reason) has already been put into place by the current GOP administration, typically with the enthusiastic aid of Republicans in Congress. Whether we're talking about the Medicare prescription drug benefit or the war in the Iraq or the federalizing of education policy or the PATRIOT Act (which recycled Janet Reno's law enforcement wish list) or trade sanctions or regulatory overload or the freaking bailout, the Bush admin has been there and done that.
That's because the neocons are nothing more than liberals in disguise. They think the only way to keep power is to beat the liberals to their own policies and programs.
I agree. I think the Republican Party is done in its present form.
The only valid basis for any political party is the position that it will constitute the government as the protector of individual rights by banning the initiation of force or fraud by any person or group of persons. All functions of government, be they of domestic order or protection from foreign threats, need to be reinterpreted inside the framework of protecting individual rights and the rational self-interest of the country.
In the past, the Democrats were seen as the protector of the individual person in all areas except business and the Republicans were seen as the protector of business and the country.
Since the protection of individual rights is anathema to both parties, it's logical that individual rights be embraced in all aspects by a new or reconstituted party.
The Democrats need to rename themselves the Socialists and offer themselves as the party of social and economic control and the systematic violation of individual rights.
If a new Party were to arise under the Republican banner this would mean jettisoning the control of the woman's right to her body including the right to abort a fetus. Further it would mean advocating the freedom of religion, not the application of a religion. It would protect adults to enter into a contract to live together as a union so long as they shall live. It would protect the right to free speech no matter what its subject, including political speech, so long as it does not advocate a direct threat to the rights of individual citizens or the country, the protector of those rights. It would do away with all social programs and let those individuals who want to provide them do that. It would jettison all the regulatory agencies and allow free individuals to determine what they need and the standards by which they offer and buy their products as an aspect of the businessman's product and reputation in free, open and peaceful competition with others.
And finally, the government has to be placed on the same moral standard as the people. It would be unable to take people's money for any purpose and would have to either charge for its services or enroll people into financially supporting them. Although it has a monopoly on the retaliatory use of force inside the borders of the country, it doesn't have the right to survive without constantly proving its value just as every person has to do in order to survive.
That's radical.
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