We’re Moving
I’d like to thank all of you who made the Reluctant Republicans for McCain web site what it was over the last several months. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed having a place to think out loud and to have some spirited discussions. The reason that we started this entire venture was that we knew the Republican candidate for President, John McCain, was at best lukewarm when it came to his conservatism. Ultimately, I believe that conservatives and liberals alike rejected him for that reason. The Republican party has some soul searching to do now and it is our hope that they will realize that abandoning the conservative principles that once defined them throughout the Bush presidency and culminating with the nomination of John McCain was ultimately their downfall. To that end, we’re moving and launching a new effort at ConservatismLives.com. I hope that you’ll move with us and continue what we’ve started.
Mission: Failed
Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel and said to him, “…appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.”
But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us…”
1 Samuel 8:4, 19-20
May God Help Us All, and Save Us From Ourselves
Some Final Thoughts
I have enjoyed the journey of discovery and debate with you these last few months. While my future here on the “interwebs” remains uncertain, one thing does not; tomorrow is the day, my friends. Tomorrow is the day we’ve been building up to. For some, it’s the day you’ve been waiting for. For others, it’s the day you’ve feared. I know many of you on my side of the ideological divide have been discouraged by recent polls. I know have been at times. I would urge you though, do not allow the media and those polls to create a self fulfilling prophecy. Do not stay home tomorrow. Get out and vote. Elections are won with voter turnout. Why do you think the Democrats bus people around (sometimes from prisons) and Acorn has been working so hard to register new Democratic voters? Turnout. Turnout. Turnout.
With that in mind, if you’re still undecided or were thinking of voting third party I’d like to offer some final thoughts for your decision making process from your friendly neighborhood Reluctant Republican. This list is not meant to be all inclusive, but I hope it helps you in the final day as you weigh your options.
Please get out and vote John McCain for the sake of our economy. Barack Obama wants to raise taxes. Lots of taxes; personal income taxes, capital gains taxes, Social Security taxes, corporate income taxes, etc. We can argue over who exactly that will impact. However, I would argue that on some level it doesn’t matter. John McCain is right when he says, “At times like these, why would you want to raise taxes on anyone?” We need a strong economy. What makes a strong economy? Strong businesses creating a strong job market. Increasing taxes on people and business simply will not and can not create that. When’s the last time you heard of government starting a successful business and creating jobs? People and businesses do that, and increasing taxes on them will stifle the economy and job creation. Obama himself admitted that his plan to raise capital gains taxes was not about bettering the economy or creating jobs. It was about “fairness”. We need a strong economy and a strong job market, plain and simple.
Please get out and vote John McCain for the sake of the less fortunate. Obama gets all the press with those among us who have a heart for the less fortunate. After all, clearly some people do have “more than they need” by any standard. So what could be so wrong with wanting to use some of that to help out those less fortunate? We’ve covered that a little already here, but moral issues aside, taking money from those who have it in order to give it to those who do not is simply not a practical and effective long term solution. What the less fortunate need is a job and an opportunity that will provide for them and their families today, tomorrow, next week and next year. For that, what we really need to help people is a strong economy. We don’t need to be focusing on the “fair” redistribution of wealth. We need to be focusing on creating wealth, for everyone. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Please get out and vote John McCain for the sake of the unborn. Obama has worked hard to paint himself as a centrist who’s interested in “reducing the number of abortions”. Additionally, I know many of you believe that a president has little impact on this issue. Traditionally, people will argue that presidents appoint Supreme Court Justices and that they hold sway over Roe v. Wade. I’m not even going to go there. With Obama’s it’s much more straightforward and unprecedented in Presidential politics. Obama has pledged to make his first act as President the signing of the most far reaching pro-abortion law ever to hit a U.S. President’s desk; the “Freedom of Choice Act“. The law, if passed, would eliminate all state and local regulations on abortion including parental notification, waiting periods, and even spousal consent.
Please get out and vote John McCain for the sake of our nation’s energy needs. Obama has been pushing the idea of developing new technologies as the solution to our energy crisis. The problem is that none of the technologies he’s proposed are mature enough to have an impact in the short term. What’s more, he refuses to look at existing technologies that would have an impact in the short term like increased domestic oil production and nuclear power. As a final blow, its now clear that he’s willing to bankrupt existing energy companies in order to pursue his environmental agenda and worsen our current energy crisis in the process. John McCain is right when he says that we need to pursue every option and not take anything off the table in working to meet our energy needs.
Please get out and vote John McCain for the sake of your gun rights. Obama has been a staunch supporter of increased restrictions on gun ownership, increased restrictions on ammunition sales, increased taxes on firearm related sales, and opening up lawsuits against manufacturers. (Read the NRA’s report here).
Please get out and vote for John McCain for the sake of our national security. Obama has been all over the map on the issue of foreign policy. He’s said everything from the fact that he will work to stop the improvement of our national defense systems, to the fact that he would sit down to negotiate with rogue dictators without pre-conditions,
to the fact that he would put a hard withdraw date from Iraq regardless of our progress toward victory essentially giving our enemies a timeline for how long they can hide out until we leave. Obama is completely untested in this regard. Say whatever else you want about John McCain, but that man has stared evil in the eye, been beaten and tortured by enemies of this country, and chosen to allow his countrymen to leave that private hell before he did. That reveals a depth of character, a love of country, and an understanding of the realities of the world in which we live that I believe Barack Obama simply lacks.
Please get out and vote for John McCain for the sake of our educational system. McCain supports introducing competition to the educational system to improve overall quality. A voucher system has been favored by voters for years and blocked by the unions during the whole time. Moreover, this misuse of power by the left has created a cycle of poor education and poverty level employment among those trapped in poor school districts. (An issue we covered in more depth here).
Please get out and vote for John McCain instead of your third party of choice. I understand the temptation to look for a candidate that represents all of your principles (or at least a couple more than McCain does). But do you really want to help elect a man who shares none of your principles at such a critical juncture for our country? The very reason you are considering a third party vote is that you are first and foremost a principled patriot. Please, put the next four years of our country’s well being as your priority. The rest of us will thank you.
For All You "Cheers" Fans
John Ratzenberger has come out blasting Obama for “attacking the American dream”. Ratzenberger is probably best known for his role as Cliff Clavin on Cheers. For those of us with young children, he’s probably just as well known for having voiced a character in every Pixar movie ever made. He’s an actor, so take it for what’s it’s worth. Since we conservatives rarely get supporters from Hollywood though, I can never resist throwing one up when we do.
New Audio Obama’s Energy Plan
Energy prices are at all time highs, Obama refuses to embrace the one technology that we have that we know works in nuclear power (Even the French are on board with nuclear power. As a matter of fact, they get almost 90% of their power from nuclear). Now some new audio have surfaced of an interview Obama did in January with the San Francisco Chronicle in which he describes how his energy plan will put the squeeze on the coal industry (which generates roughly half of the electricity in the U.S.) to the point that anyone opening a new coal plant would be bankrupted. Full audio below, but here’s the money quote:
"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it (my plan) will bankrupt them."
This is the problem with being a strict ideologue on things like the environment. The environment comes first, no matter what. Regardless of the fact that there is ongoing debate about the impact of various types of emissions, etc., and that therefore we don’t even really know for sure what steps like this will have on the environment. You see, we have to "try" (primarily because we feel better about ourselves if we do). We may cripple our economy even further in the short term by artificially increasing the cost of energy, but if we can develop solar and wind technology in 10 or 15 years instead of 20 or 25, by golly its worth it. This is sheer insanity. Do you honestly think the Russians or the Chinese are even close to where we are in terms of being environmentally responsible? If you care about the environment at all, priority number 1 ought to be maintaining the health of the U.S. economy so that less responsible economies like those don’t take over the world.
What Is Up With The Polls?
In any election, I think you have to take the polls with a grain of salt. I mean, most polls sample little more than a thousand voters. With over 100 million people likely to vote, there’s bound to be some disconnect. What seems to me to be unprecedented this time around though is the degree to which the polls have varied between each other. Gallup is now showing a 10 point lead for Obama. Rasmussen shows Obama up by 6 points. Zogby shows Obama up by 5 points in one poll and McCain up by 1 point in another. And Tipp shows a whopping 9 percent still undecided. (As a side note, Tipp was rated as the most accurate poll by far in the 2004 election). At one point last week I saw one poll that had Obama up by 14 points and another that had him up 2 points. (Most polls by the way, have a "margin of error" of 3 points in either direction). So who do you believe? Are ANY of them on target? I don’t know, but for me one thing is certain. The wild variations between the polls this time around has made it clear to me that they probably just aren’t as reliable in general as they once were.
Obama’s New Message: Hope For Less
According to the Times of London, the Obama camp is putting together an action plan to lower expectations from his supporters if he wins on Tuesday (full story here). As election day approaches quickly, they’ve apparently started to realize that as a friend of mine used to say, "he’s been writing checks with his mouth that his body just can’t cash." I have to say, it’s starting to seem more and more like what I’ve suspected for some time. All that "soaring rhetoric" was lifted by nothing more than a lot of hot air.
Let’s Tax the Rich
So says Obama and the Democrats. The key to this sales pitch is that the majority of voters believe that Obama is talking about taxing someone else (after all, we’re all selfish on some level aren’t we?) The problem with taxing the “rich” is that “rich” isn’t easily defined. For most of his campaign, Obama’s been pushing the number $250,000 as the “line” between the rich and the middle class. Since most people earn less than that, and Obama says he can solve our problems by sticking it to those other people, that sounds pretty good to most of us. The problem, however, is that increasing taxes is never about solving problems. Its about what’s “fair” (and we’ve been over that already).
The other problem with that is that invariably, “rich” becomes a moving target. Joe Biden this week said that the “line” was $150,000. In his prime time special this week Obama used $200,000 as the number. Most recently, Democratic Governor Bill Richardson (who was on Obama’s short list of VP candidates before Biden was selected) has now gone on record as saying that the line in Obama’s plans between “middle class” and “rich” is $120,000 (listen to that audio here). Many of you in the Mid-West are still saying “So what? That still sounds like a lot of money to me.” Why don’t you ask some married friends of yours who live on either of the coasts and both work if their combined income is above $120,000 a year. Then ask them if they’re “rich”. Or why don’t you ask any small business owner you know if they’re an “S” Corp (which taxes the owner for the income of the business regardless of whether or not they have personal use of the income). The point, however, is that you can never trust that raising taxes on someone else will stay as raising them on someone else because that line is always moving whether the politician making the promises will admit it or not. Invariably, I think you will find that when jumping on board with a plan to stick it to someone else, you or someone you know will end up sustaining some friendly fire. Which is why I stand with John McCain when he says, “At times like these, why would you want to raise taxes on anybody?”
Partisan Obama Emerges
Despite all of his rhetoric about uniting the country and bringing people together, Obama today showed himself to be a partisan politician like those he criticizes. You see, as he makes his final push for the White House he kicked three newspapers (the New York Post, the Dallas Morning News, and the Washington Times) off his campaign plane (full story here). (For those of you unaware, major news outlets travel with the candidates directly so that they have better access and can cover the campaigns more closely.) What do these three newspapers have in common? Their editorial pages endorsed John McCain. (You can read the Washington Times’ account here).
I think its safe to say at this point that the average American is sick of partisan politics and bickering. We have real problems that require real solutions. Solving those problems will only be hampered by political posturing. If Obama can’t deal with a few newspapers because they didn’t endorse him, how is he going to deal with any Republicans in congress? Say whatever else you want about John McCain, but the man knows how to cross the aisle to get things done.
Let’s Make Al Qaeda Proud
Reuters is reporting that Al Qaeda has released a new video online in which they pray for the Republican party and George Bush to be humiliated next week by the election results (full story here). I know many of you, dear readers, discount anything and everything said by these types of groups in this regard, but frankly this is my blog, and I think its relevant. Here’s the money quote from Abu Yahya al-Libi:
O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him.
Why I’m Not a Liberal
First, a little disclaimer. This post is not intended to be an all inclusive dissertation on liberalism and conservatism. Rather, it represents some roughly formed thoughts I’ve been having over the last few weeks and should only be taken as such.
I’ve been trying to pin down exactly what it is about liberalism that I have such a strong reaction to. I listen to the politicians. I read the editorials. I think I’ve finally put my finger on it. Liberalism strikes me as fundamentally negative. If you listen to the conservative message (as I understand it and subscribe to it), it is generally about allowing people to have opportunity and empowering individuals to achieve their dreams and reach their potential. We conservatives talk about stretching ourselves and reaching for something greater than that from which we came. We believe in freedom and that freedom comes at a price and that that price is first and foremost the responsibility for oneself. We believe that through individual empowerment, hard work, and liberty, wealth can be created, we can expand the size of the pie, and that in turn, that rising tide will lift all boats.
The liberal message, on the other hand, always seems to me like its more about “taking” something (usually by force), and or believing that people are not capable of achievement on their own. Liberals believe that wealth is a static pie to be “fairly” divided (wherein they, of course, arbitrarily decide the definition of “fair”). Liberal tax ideology says that group “A” has too much money so it must be taken from them and given to group “B”. Modern unions want to take away the reward of the entrepreneur who shoulders all of the risk and shift it to those who do not assume risk. Legions of liberals have dedicated themselves to making sure that a woman maintains the legal ability to take the life of her baby. Affirmative action tells people that they are incapable of overcoming obstacles without the help of someone else.
I believe in the human spirit. I believe in the American spirit. I believe in the individual. I believe in freedom. I believe in liberty.
I believe in conservatism.
The Practical Application Of An Obama Tax Plan
This is not original to me. As a matter of fact, I’m not even certain where it originates, but it illustrates the point well so I thought I would pass it on.
Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read ‘Vote Obama, I need the money.’ I laughed.
Once in the restaurant my server had on a ‘Obama 08′ tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference–just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need–the homeless guy outside.
The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
A Democratic Speech Writer Outlines Her Reasons for Voting McCain
It may or may not surprise you to know that I read a lot of news. More to the point, I read and watch a lot of news from a lot of varied sources; including traditionally left leaning outlets. I read a very interesting piece today by Wendy Button (you can read it for yourself here). Wendy is a Democratic speech writer who’s worked for John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and even Obama himself. She had some kind words for Joe Biden and some very interesting insight into the inner workings of a political campaign. More to the point, after watching her party mercilessly attack two women and one working class citizen in Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and "Joe the plumber" in the name of getting Obama elected, she soured on the Democrats. Don’t get me wrong, she has some pointed words for the Republicans in that regard also, which is why I think I liked the article so much. It really read to me like someone who was speaking truthfully and honestly about their own soul searching. At any rate, I’ve excerpted some portions below. (Again, the entire article can be found here if you have the chance to read it.)
The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.
Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?
We can talk about the wardrobe and make-up even though most people don’t understand the details about Senator Obama’s plan with Iraq. When he says, “all combat troops,” he’s not talking about all troops—it leaves a residual force of as large as 55,000 indefinitely. That’s not ending the war; that’s half a war.
I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.
I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.
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