October 25, 2004

(Well, folks, this is my take on this year's election.
A bit raw and unrefined, but I hope you understand: I just don't give a flying rip. -- dfn)

The election of 2004 will not matter.

Despite the endless commotion and lobotomizing media chatter and despite the endless pleas from Bush and Kerry partisans about how it-is-absolutely-crucial-to-the-future-of-this-nation-and-quite-possibly-the-world that their guy wins, this election won’t matter.

Kerry and company are at least honest about what they believe in. They admit they support oppressive taxation, an incredibly lavish welfare state, federal intrusion in education, gun control, membership in the UN and abortion on demand.

Kerry is a wolf.

Bush and company want you to think they are polar opposites of Kerry and company.

However, they still support oppressive taxation. The Bush tax cuts, while they sound massive, will only put about three dollars a week back in the pocket of the average American. Bling, bling!

They love welfare when Republicans expand it, as they have done with the prescription drug benefit and the Faith Based Initiative. (The latter is easily Bush's worst domestic policy idea. Federal money for churches will mean federal control of churches.)

They love federal intrusion into education, exemplified by the "No Child Left Behind" program. In the third presidential debate, Dubya bragged of increasing federal spending on education by 49 percent in the last four years. All the Bush groupies would have cried "Stalinism" had Al Gore done this.

They love gun control. Bush favored a continuation of the Clinton gun ban, and would have signed it had congress passed it. Also, have you been to an airport in the last three years?

They love our membership in the UN, the biggest collection of political pond scum ever to stink up this planet. The UN is a place where Sudan and North Korea can cancel America’s vote. Bush has no intentions of getting us out.

And they love abortion on demand. The partial birth abortion ban would have outlawed almost no abortions. And when the Ninth Circuit shot down the ban, Republicans simply treated this decision as a law. Any fool knows that judges cannot make laws.

Bush talks like Thomas Jefferson, but governs like Ted Kennedy.

Bush is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

A Kerry administration would bring us a socialist police state at home and perpetual war for empire abroad.

Four more years of Bush would bring us a socialist police state at home and perpetual war for empire abroad.

What is so holy and sacred about Bush and why is Kerry the candidate from the bowels of hell?

For decades, proponents of communism have said that communism would work if only the right people were in charge. We know this hasn’t happened.

Bush groupies would have you think that socialism – the legacy of FDR – and imperialism – the legacy of Woodrow Wilson – will work if only we put the right people in charge.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan came to Washington proclaiming that Jimmy Carter’s $600 billion budget was too big. President Bush recently asked Congress for a budget of $2.34 trillion. This is almost a fourfold increase. For 22 the 24 years since Reagan took office, America has had a Republican president and/or a Republican majority in at least one house of congress. And the federal government has quadrupled in size! Dude, where’s my revolution?

After almost four years of Dubya, all the programs that Republicans say they hate are bigger, costlier and more intrusive than ever. And they still don’t work! (In the two years Dubya had to contend with a Democrat controlled Senate, he never once vetoed a spending bill.)

Uncle Sam has spent $9 trillion fighting poverty since 1965 and we still have a permanent underclass.

There is one drug arrest every 42 seconds in this country and yet America has more drugs and more dangerous drugs than ever. (Republicans like to say that government doesn’t work, but God forbid you criticize that sacred cow that is the Drug War.)

There are 20,000 gun laws on the books in America, and crime and violence are still rampant.

Have I even mentioned the Constitution yet? Two words don’t appear there: “solve” and “problems.” No matter who occupies the White House or has a majority on Capitol Hill, government cannot solve your problems, my problems or the country’s problems.

Are we even a free country? Since 1980 America’s prison population has quadrupled, giving us now the world’s highest incarceration rate. And nine of the ten policy planks of the Communist Manifesto are currently in place in this the land of the free. I guess it depends on your definition of freedom.

But what about the courts? In 22 of the 24 years since Ronald Reagan took office, America has had either a Republican president and/or a Republican Senate majority. (In six of Bill Clinton's eight years, Republicans controlled the Senate and had the ability to "Bork" every last one of his nominees.) And yet, the federal courts are still an abject farce!

Clinton and the Democratic majority are gone. Republicans have the presidency, a majority in both houses of Congress and a 7-2 majority on the Supreme Court. Bill Clinton, to be sure, was a problem, but not the problem. He is yesterday’s news. He is a has-been. He is the Mike Tyson of politics.

I thought Republicans were supposed to give us real – and really big -- tax and spending cuts. Also, I thought they were supposed to repeal laws and shut down agencies and departments.

This hasn’t happened. And most of their supporters are in total denial about this.

But what about terrorism? President Bush recently authorized a $417 billion military – not a defense, a military -- budget for the coming year. To give you an idea of the immensity of this budget, it is larger than the next eight military budgets combined. It is eight times larger than the military budgets of the 20 Arab countries combined.

And yet everyone wants to screw with us. This is not – like we heard so often after 9/11 – because a band of renegades led by a multi-millionaire psychopath in a cave with a turban and a ‘tude “hates our freedom and our democracy.” It is because we have our military in over 130 countries around the world. The Soviet Union could never say this. You cannot throw your weight around to this extent and expect to have everyone love you.

Instead of merely taking out the perps of 9/11, Dubya has embarked on a worldwide crusade to “rid the world of evildoers.” This is perhaps the most utopian promise ever made by a political figure.

In true liberal fashion, he is augmenting a failed big government program. If you want to minimize the terrorist threat to America, pull all the troops home. Quit meddling around in the affairs of every last country on earth. Get the military back to its original function of defending our coasts and borders. The Founders were right: steer clear of "entangling alliances."

If you are losing sleep about events in Iraq, do this: call your boss and tell him you won’t be in on Monday because you are off to bust caps in Fallujah.

Again, this election won’t matter. No matter who wins, we will have a socialist police state at home and perpetual war for empire abroad.

But Bush is so Christian. I know, I know: he said he was a Christian in the 2000 campaign and he hasn’t hoed around with any interns. Other than that, what is the difference between him and Kerry? I will no more judge Bush than I will Clinton or Kerry in matters spiritual. However, the partial birth abortion ban had no teeth in it and the proposed federal marriage amendment is a dumb idea for reasons outlined here.

But we cannot under any circumstances have Kerry. I will vote for anyone but Kerry! Fine. Would you vote for Michael Moore? How about Louis Farrakhan, Alec Baldwin or Jane Fonda?

I have said it several times before and I will say it again: the disreputable side of my would like to see Kerry win. At least then, the folks who say they believe in limited government would give Kerry stiff opposition rather than the hero worship they have heaped on Bush.

So what does one do? I hang my hat with the Libertarian Party and its presidential candidate Michael Badnarik. Where there are no Libertarians on the ballot, I will support the Constitution Party. If no one from either of these parties appears on the ballot for a given office, I will write someone in. I will not put my stamp of approval on our current form of government. And if you do not support our current form of government, don't put your stamp of approval on it either. When you support the lesser of two evils, you still get evil.

I know. I know. Badnarik has about as much of a chance of winning the Oval Office as he does of winning the Heisman Trophy. However, you only waste your vote when you vote for something you don’t believe in. I do not believe in socialism, a police state or perpetual war for empire. Therefore I will not vote for a candidate – either Bush or Kerry – who supports these things.

If you are voting for someone just because they have a chance of winning I ask you: What grade are you in? If you are voting, the probability is overwhelming that you are out of high school. Stop thinking and acting like you are still in high school.

Vin Suprynowicz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal espouses the pro-freedom view as well as anyone. In a recent column, he knocks one into the cheap seats:

“Pretend with me that you’re an old German on your deathbed today. Would you rather tell your grandchildren, ‘I voted for the Nazis because they seemed better than the Communists and no other party could win’? Wouldn’t you rather be able to rise up and say, ‘I publicly denounced the Nazis and the Communists’? We were a minority – 1 or 2 percent – but we stood up for the truth and we were right! We proved not all Germans were mindless torchbearers for tyranny! We were ridiculed, we were beaten and jailed, but we saved this nation’s soul. Now children, go and live your lives in a way to make me proud’?”

Bush is not Hitler and Kerry is not Stalin. However, this country is on a bobsled ride toward full-blown socialist tyranny. No matter who wins on November 2, this bobsled ride will continue.

Would you rather aid and abet this bobsled of state on its current course, or would you rather say “I don’t think so”?

Do you want peaceful revolution now or violent revolution later?

Sleep well.

If you would like to post this, please email me and include this URL.

Freely Speaking: Essays by Doug Newman

***