The Coming Election
Oct. 22nd, 2008 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quasigeostrophyYes, I'm breaking one of my own tenets ("There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin." -- Linus Van Pelt), but it's one post. I'll get over it. :-)
I've been a fiscal conservative as long as I can remember. I'm also very much in favor of small government. I don't claim to be affiliated with any particular political party, however, particularly in recent years. That said, I'm certainly not leaning toward McCain. The mainstream of the Republican party has gone so far away from fiscal conservatism and small government that it's barely recognizable. They ride on the jingoism stirred up post-9/11 and feed on terror generated by the current administrations own "war on terror". Sorry, but what war on terror? When my own countrymen can detain me under any flimsy excuse of terrorism, we lost. It's over. The rising tide of uninformed idiocy from the far far right also seems to be getting more than its share of the party platform with wasteful and discriminatory "defense of marriage" acts and the like. And then McCain goes and picks a completely incompetent running mate.
I'm currently planning on voting for Obama, but I refuse to declare that I support him. Unfortunately, as has happened in too many previous elections, I'm voting against someone more than for someone. I don't like voting for vague "hope" or "change" just because the candidate promises things will be different. In my experience, a president can make things worse much easier than he/she can make them better. Call me cynical, but I've heard it before. Obama's "Blueprint for Change" is extremely ambitious, and I'm not thrilled with the progressive taxation planned to pay for it. I don't like the idea that we must "spread the wealth around". I've never felt that rich equals evil or is a legitimate reason for those folks to pay more taxes (and I'm not rich). Financially, however, McCain's plans are either in the same ballpark, or they're worse in other ways.
So, yes, I'm voting blue, at least for prez. Neither candidate excites me, but the negatives of one outweigh the negatives of the other.
And now back to the wall...
I've been a fiscal conservative as long as I can remember. I'm also very much in favor of small government. I don't claim to be affiliated with any particular political party, however, particularly in recent years. That said, I'm certainly not leaning toward McCain. The mainstream of the Republican party has gone so far away from fiscal conservatism and small government that it's barely recognizable. They ride on the jingoism stirred up post-9/11 and feed on terror generated by the current administrations own "war on terror". Sorry, but what war on terror? When my own countrymen can detain me under any flimsy excuse of terrorism, we lost. It's over. The rising tide of uninformed idiocy from the far far right also seems to be getting more than its share of the party platform with wasteful and discriminatory "defense of marriage" acts and the like. And then McCain goes and picks a completely incompetent running mate.
I'm currently planning on voting for Obama, but I refuse to declare that I support him. Unfortunately, as has happened in too many previous elections, I'm voting against someone more than for someone. I don't like voting for vague "hope" or "change" just because the candidate promises things will be different. In my experience, a president can make things worse much easier than he/she can make them better. Call me cynical, but I've heard it before. Obama's "Blueprint for Change" is extremely ambitious, and I'm not thrilled with the progressive taxation planned to pay for it. I don't like the idea that we must "spread the wealth around". I've never felt that rich equals evil or is a legitimate reason for those folks to pay more taxes (and I'm not rich). Financially, however, McCain's plans are either in the same ballpark, or they're worse in other ways.
So, yes, I'm voting blue, at least for prez. Neither candidate excites me, but the negatives of one outweigh the negatives of the other.
And now back to the wall...
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-23 04:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-23 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-23 03:43 pm (UTC)I also caught a news story that we're not allowed to call Obama a socialist anymore - it appears it is an "old racial term" - who knew?
no subject
Date: 2008-10-23 08:51 pm (UTC)WTF?
no subject
Date: 2008-10-24 02:34 am (UTC)http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2493