News Flash! Mitt Romney is NOT the most conservative candidate ever!
I talked about this a little while. I am not going to provide any links or mention any names, but I have severed all ties with a site that I have frequented for a long time. The reason is that it is basically populated and controlled by idiots.
As I have said before, I most often call myself a Christian libertarian. I think I am a classical liberal, much like Chesterton. I get my economic theory from Bastiat. In 2008, I voted in my state primary for Mitt Romney while most of my friends voted for Mike Huckabee. Fred Thompson -- my first choice -- had already dropped out. This year I voted for Ron Paul.
Perhaps I am not representative of conservatives, but I find the idea that people who call themselves conservatives would refuse to cast a vote to defeat Barack Obama out of "principle" simply ridiculous. It is politics. Yes, you make your decisions based on principles. Principles should help you determine which candidate will do the least harm. I have voted now in about eleven presidential elections. A couple of times when I did not think it mattered -- in terms of how my state's electoral votes would go -- I voted Libertarian. I think a couple of times I voted for Democrats that I knew for local offices, otherwise I have voted Republican without a whole lot of regrets. I voted for John McCain. I was not, for a while, terribly sorry that he lost. I was very sorry that the Democrats had a 60-vote lock on the Senate. Looking at the utter incompetence of Obama, I have to say even McCain would have been an improvement.
Obama needs to be replaced. While I have some reservations about Romney, I would say the same of every candidate for public office. I don't expect Romney to make the gargantuan cuts to the budget that are obviously necessary because such a drastic course is not politically expedient.
On the whole, I do not think the problems we have in this country are ultimately political nor can they be resolved by any politician. The fix for America is not in the hands of Wall Street or the Beltway elites on either side. The remedy is in us as individuals turning away from government solutions. We need freedom to do that. The question we must ask, then, is not whether a candidate has "good ideas" or "offers solutions", but rather does the candidate grasp the fact -- whatever he may say and do -- that the power lies ultimately with the individual citizens of this nation? If he does, and if he will allow us to go about our business with fewer hindrances, we will eventually climb out of the hole. If he does not, if he (or she) insists on claiming to know what is best for each of us -- viewing us as a collective of subjects, we will sink down further.
If conservatives are too stupid to see the present choice in that light, it is hardly a wonder that we are in the condition we are.
True that. (WRT the last comment). Well, the whole post was good. One concept I read elsewhere was, to not vote was to commit a sin of omission. You are hurting everyone by not voting. That's a bit selfish. Then there is the more disturbing thought that those who don't vote actually want to see the destruction of this country to bring about some sort of survivalist fantasy. People like that need to be disabused of said fantasy.
ReplyDeleteIt's childish. "I want my way." One of the reasons the left has done so well over the years in this country and around the world is their acceptance of incrementalism. They are normally not going to get everything they want in one swell foop, and they are pragmatic enough to know that. Obamacare isn't what the left wants. They want single-payer, Canadian/European-style, government-run healthcare.
ReplyDeleteThey almost had open rebellion with Obamacare. Single-payer would have been DOA. But they took what they could get, and said, we ain't seen nothin' yet -- to quote those great philosophers from BTO.
Politics is the convergence of principle and pragmatism. It's the dynamic. You have to deal with it.