Elections Matter

Elections are about choices, and choices have consequences. Think about what’s at stake. Unless we elect candidates with real world experience who consider politics a short term public service rather than a career, the country will continue it’s current slide. We as a society will suffer a government which will spend more than our entire countries GDP. This will necessitate the largest tax increase in our nation’s history.

Consider the explosion in spending—supported by both political parties—that threatens to drown the country in red ink. Unless we get expenditures under control, the long-term prospects for our economy will be diminished.

Think about the deluge of new regulations embedded in the health care and financial reform bills and those coming from the federal agencies. Will we continue to pile ever more burdensome regulations on businesses, or will we demand fewer, smarter regulations that will provide businesses with the certainty they need to grow and hire new workers?

Should a centralized government be in charge of many aspects of everyday life? Should more government intervention, make us all better off? I believe that this premise is flawed because we cannot have the Federal government take money from a productive segment of the population, give a portion of that money to an unproductive segment of society and make the country as a whole better off.

Government should be involved in little more than National Defense, infrastructure, and the rule of law. History has shown that government doesn’t do anything else efficiently and social engineering by a centralized government is much more oppressive than productive. Government cannot regulate a “level the playing field” or engineer society through the tax code, yet it tries to with every election. We are meant to be free and our founding fathers understood this. I truly believe that our constitution enables the citizens of our country to be free and regulastions and extreme taxation is an infringement on our freedom. I speak of infringement that happens from both sides of the political spectrum and is accomplished through the use of the 70,000+ pages of the tax code and more than 80,000 pages of Federal regulations. Remember the words of one of our founding fathers: “That government is best which governs least”.

One last thought. When a company becomes inefficient, doesn’t pay attention to the requirements of the market or fails to serve it's customers, except in cases where that company is supported by the government, that company will likely go out of business. When the government fails to serve it’s constituents, spends beyond it’s means, taxes the productive to the point that they are not competitive or overburdens the productive with regulations, we all suffer. Consider this when you go into the voting booth.

Ideaological Politics

Ideologues, when in charge of either party, are extremely destructive. One of the greatest attributes on our Republic is that the Founding Fathers devised a system which generally ensures a balance of power. Balance of power shifted too far in either direction, as we saw during the 2000 cycle and the 2008 cycle, is very bad for the country.

Yet, calling either of the past two Presidents names, such as a "Hitler without the mustache" is an unserious position and one that adds nothing to a legitimate discussion of the issues. Using these pejoratives to dissuade Obama supporters, many of whom now suffer nearly terminal buyer's remorse is not helpful. It's as obtuse as saying "Bush Lied, People Died," or that George W. Bush ran for president so he could fabricate intelligence to unjustifiably take the country to war to avenge his father and enrich his military contractor friends. Remember that neither Bush nor Obama act alone. Every Republican Senator and most Democratic Senators voted to invade Iraq. Every Democratic senator voted for the "stimulus" and for ObamaCare.

Bush made serious missteps and brought America along for the ride, but at least he truly believes in American exceptionalism. The problem is much deeper and far more serious with Mr. Obama, who is more a symptom of what truly ails America. Obama’s nomination was reactionary and he was elevated to princely status. Yet, blaming the prince should not blind anyone to the vacuous multitude who elevated him.

Obama's leftism is mainstreamed by his party. If stating that Obama is evil, what does this make those who support his agenda? To claim they are all evil is just plain foolish. It's more on point to say that Obama is an inexperienced, naive, wrongheaded ideologue who, even now, doesn't recognize the harm he is doing to the country. Truth be told, the President is an arrogant man with a racial chip on his shoulder. He is unquestionably a wealth redistributionist who, by his own statements, thinks of America as an imperialist power that needs to apologize to the world for its past sins. This does not make Obama evil, it simply makes him wrong, which in many ways makes him harder to deal with -- and even more dangerous. The fact that he's not out to intentionally destroy America makes him a larger menace.

Good intentions make it difficult to persuade people to fight against his policies, harder to focus not on intentions but rather on consequences and results. The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry willing to entrust a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved, apathetic electorate willing to elect either Bush or Obama for their president.

Over the next two years, Obama's will retreat toward the middle. It will be tactical, not reflective of a change of heart or core belief because he will have no choice. The balance of power will shift and he will either check himself or be checked. This is the reality of American politics.

The Republic will survive George Bush and Barack Obama, who are merely ideologues. It is less likely to survive the multitude of fools and their political parties, who elevated such men to national candidacy in the first place.