A Last Gasp

This is my last blog post before Election Day. I already voted via absentee ballot; a mixed ticket of Republicans, Libertarians, and Democrats of local merit. Yes, children, I read the ticket before I marked and signed it.

I think it’s clear from past commentary that I am not voting for Osama Bamalama. I would’ve voted for the Libertarian and my conscience, but Bob Barr is one of the most dishonest, self-aggrandizing people I have ever had the personal misfortune to interact with. How this man ever morphed from a Republican into a Libertarian is beyond my understanding. Libertarians have a long way to go, but if Barr is the voice of the future, I have to drastically rethink my political outlook on the philosophy that allegedly guides people who share my mindset.

I have never been entirely comfortable with Bush 41. George H.W. Bush was a career politician, and too easy when it came to making a deal with liberals.

Like John McCain, George H.W. Bush was a war hero. So were Eisenhower and Grant. John Kennedy rose to the heroic, after making one of the dumbest tactical maneuvers of War II.

Being a hero is not a requisite for leadership. Bucking your “superiors”, or being a “maverick”, is not grounds for being a leader. I was awarded medals for running away during an NVA position overrun; at the awards parade, I wanted to turn around, extend my hand backwards, and say “General, put ‘er there, so I can stick it in my back pocket and go hide somewhere.” (I was last guy out; slow man gets an award.) During my subsequent career, I continually badmouthed and disrespected my bosses; only federal tenure saved me from being fired. Insubordination and bureaucracy are generally incompatible.

I’d make a lousy leader of the free world; I’d be ordering smart bombs through the bad guy’s bedroom windows as fast as I could scramble the F-117s.

A friend and Constant Reader described this as a “hold-your-nose” election. I read that as we either vote for John McCain, or we select an alternative.

I describe myself as “a conservative Libertarian”. The key word here is “conservative”; I am a Libertarian in the sense that I believe people are going to do what they’re going to do: drug use, visiting prostitutes, same-sex liaisons, and other activities that are questionably moral. It isn’t my quest in life to legislate morality for these folks. I am against The State raiding into my church and saying we have to recognize uni-sex marriages under the eyes of our God; civil unions that guarantee rights are fine. I smoked my share of illegal substances, and if anyone wants to visit a red light zone to spend some time with some strange, who am I to argue?

Conservatives seek to preserve things; “Progressives” seek to move beyond the status quo. Unfortunately, the progressive goal is often undefined. I hear someone leading chants about “change”, I want to know specifically what they mean. When I hear socialist, “Robin Hood” ideology offered as an alternative to the traditional means of obtaining wealth and security in life, I get very jumpy. Errol Flynn’s “Robin Hood” was very romantic, and totally unrealistic. When the government shows up to take your hard-earned money from your pocket to redistribute it to the undeserving “because it’s fair”, or because “it’s patriotic to pay taxes”, I’ll bet the “change” tune changes PDQ.

Senator McCain has not run a successful campaign. His VP choice was brilliant. Governor Palin will be a future powerhouse in GOP politics.

Han Solo to Luke Skywalker in the original “Star Wars”: “I have a bad feeling about this.”

I think we are looking at the inevitable coronation of the absolute wrong first-black-president of the United States. I have not called this man “The Manchurian Candidate” for nothing. He has consistently failed to define himself behind the cloud of slick, rock ‘n roll rhetoric. Only now are his penchants for terrorist appeasement, wealth redistribution, and generally incoherent social policies coming to light.

One last time, ladies and gentlemen, at the risk of repeating myself: WE MUST TAKE BACK THE CONGRESS!

America will survive four years of Oback Barama. Thousands will die in what his running mate Biden the Plagiarist describes as “testing”, and many thousands more will end up homeless because of his tax-and-spend garbage.

In the meantime, the people of this great country will tolerate tyranny by the greatest bunch of do-nothing politicians in history. Half the Congress is on your ballot; forget the top box where McCain runs against Obama, and read down a way. Congress, the Senate and House, are where the laws are made. If you turn that power over to ideologues like Nancy Pelosi and gray-shaded caricatures like Harry Reid, then you will truly get the government you deserve.

I’ll see y’all after election day. Vote early and vote often, as ACORN says.