First of all, let me state my political position so that you may understand where I am coming from. Then I will detail my understanding of the character and policy differences between Obama and McCain. Lastly, I will utilize the above information to discuss McCain’s choice for VP.
I am a registered Republican. However, I have found the Bush administration distasteful and a violation of conservative values. To me, the conservative ideal is that of the strong, independent, economic and rational human being. The idea of the conservative position is that any policies that enable the frequent realization of this goal, the independent and achieving citizen, should be pursued. This is why to the conservative, any tax plans that involve stripping hard-working, successful people of their rightly earned livelihood, so that it may be squandered on full-fledged and competent adults that for whatever reason have not taken the steps to achieve, is anathema. This would not apply to those under 18 years of age, who are not free in their choices or actions, and may be greatly hindered by deficient parenting or toxic environments. Not only is this a punishment and degradation of the hard-working, successful individual, but it strips the recipient of all dignity and self-respect, and becomes a very trap, a virtual caste system. Furthermore, many positions, such as being anti-abortion or pro-prayer-in-schools, that find their way under the conservative umbrella, are there because they are thought to loosely uphold the individual right to dignity, independent religious integrity, or the like. I do not always agree with some of these looser connections, but that is how such positions find their way into the Republican party, and conservative platforms in general. Furthermore, the conservative emphasis on states-rights and decreased federal power are based upon the attempt to peel back the power structure as much as possible to the individual level.
That being said, here is a run-down, available on many, many sites and news outlets, of the essential differences between McCain and Obama. This particular link is good for those who want all the details, and the source is very independent and factual. In Afghanistan, both Obama and McCain currently favor some increased presence, with Obama more vague. Both favor increased relations with Cuba. Both favor the death penalty, with Obama giving less blanket approval. On education, McCain favors a typical Republican tax-credit school choice program. McCain is a big supporter of home-schooling too. Obama has an ambitious program of mandatory pre-K. Regarding energy issues, both favor off-shore drilling, and both refuse drilling in the Arctic Reserve. McCain wants to encourage nuclear power. Both refuse global warming plans due to fears on cost. Regarding gay rights, both refuse constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage, and both want to leave the issue to states. Regarding global warming, both want to cap emissions and increase fuel efficiency standards. Regarding health care, Obama wants to mandate coverage for children, but not for adults. McCain wants to give tax credits to buy insurance. Regarding immigration, both want to allow illegals to stay if they can pass an English test and pay back fees. Regarding Iraq, Obama wants withdrawal in 1-2 years, while McCain is willing to consider a permanent presence in Iraq. Regarding Social Security, McCain wants to save it, but is vague. Obama wants to tax people over $250K/year to pay for Social Security. Both candidates support stem-cell research. Both candidates are pro-free trade, with Obama more vague. Regarding medical marijuana, McCain is against it at the federal level, while Obama is willing to consider it, but is vague and equivocal. Regarding abortion, Obama is pro-choice, while McCain is pro-life, but does not want a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, and specifically says he is fine with a pro-choice VP. Regarding taxes, McCain would like to not increase taxes, and would like to cut corporate taxes to stimulate business. Obama wants to increase taxes significantly on those making over $50-100K/year to give to the poor.
I personally see Obama’s tax plan as ridiculously socialist and prefer McCain’s. Obama’s health care plan is better and more conservative than McCain’s as it covers children only, while McCain’s tax credits are de facto providing expensive and universal coverage indiscriminately. I prefer Obama’s drug policy, and think it honors the individual and state’s rights more. Obama’s Social Security plan is more socialist, plundering upper middle-class Americans to pay for everyone else’s retirement. I prefer Obama’s abortion stance, but McCain expresses a value judgment without practical action. I believe that life begins at conception, but don’t feel government has this power, especially at the federal level. I feel Obama’s education program is better, and by focusing on children, is not violating conservative principles. As far as Iraq, both men are saying to “finish the job”, and I don’t see much difference except in their assessment of the commitment required to do so. They aren’t really arguing, contrary to popular belief, about the start of the war, but rather how to deal with a fait accompli. I clearly see Obama giving the decision of medical marijuana to the states as being more conservative and rational. In most ways, the are the same otherwise.
In reality, the President has little to do with abortion or the war on drugs. It is really Iraq and spending bills that the President might influence. I don’t see a big difference on Iraq really. And Obama’s tax, spending, and social security plans are flat-out ridiculous, rapacious and socialist. Furthermore, there is an interesting character difference between Obama and McCain that has particular importance when considering candidate positions with which I disagree. While Obama is a communicator and a bit of an equivocator, McCain is surprisingly blunt and tolerant of dissent. For example, while I disagree with McCain greatly on medical marijuana, his comment here is nothing short of amazing and deserves to be quoted in full, “Your cause I respect. In all honesty — please don’t think that I’m trying to diminish your presence here and your advocacy for what you believe in, and if I offended you I apologize. You have every right to ask your question like everyone else does at a town hall meeting, and I will continue to answer. Thank you for your commitment, I’m sorry we have a fundamental disagreement.” This illustrates the way in which McCain comes across as a man of clear values and integrity, yet, seemed to be a true conservative up till now, clearly respecting the individual’s right to self-determination and furthermore showing a healthy respect for dissent and discussion. This was very appealing in contrast to the conforming character and hive mentality of Obama. More amazingly, McCain clearly states he could have been happy with the prospect of a pro-choice VP! Obama has a sparkling vision of a socialist future which is admittedly dynamic, and he is quite interesting in such a different way than McCain. McCain by virtue of his independent stances on gay rights, stem cells, global warming, and immigration, for starters, is clearly NOT a continuation of Bush-ism in any way in and of himself, but he clearly is a continuation of Bush now in terms of how he has decided to interface with his party. In fact, Bush is a corporate fascist, while McCain was more of a true conservative up until now. Because of these qualities and policies, I was more inclined to support McCain, before he made his stunningly bad VP choice.
Now given the fact that McCain knows this election is a dead heat at 45% each in the latest Gallup poll, he knows that he must appeal to the independents. This particularly might mean getting at those critical disgruntled Hillary voters. I believe a female VP would have been clearly in order. Obviously the McCain camp saw this too. What if furthermore she would have been pro-choice, a possibility he had emphasized very, very clearly? This would have been advantageous both in gathering independent voters and separating himself from Bush. And lastly for McCain’s criticisms of Obama’s inexperience to stick, the VP should should have been someone much more accomplished and dignified, like a well-established senator instead of a beauty pageant ringer. So when we think pro-choice Republican female senators, we get one clear image: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. I was so hoping that this woman would have been McCain’s VP! A return to true conservative values! Furthermore, if McCain had done this, he would have shown the full extant of his character and political dynamism, and I believe he would have won. But now he will lose and should!
Sarah Palin is a veritable idiot. She allowed TransCanada pipelines to destroy Alaska for profit at no benefit to national security or economic benefit, but for corporate profit alone, and she supports drilling in the Arctic Reserve, in contradistinction to McCain. She is draconian and theocratic on abortion, allowing no room for state’s rights or non-Christian determination on the issue. She irrationally wants to stunt our children intellectually and economically by teaching Christian creationism in the schools, in violation of the Constitution. She sought Constitutional bans on gay marriage, again in contradistinction to McCain’s more conservative stance on the issue. She supported a failing business with corporate welfare and fraudulent criminal government, in violation of the competitive spirit of capitalism, in order to try to run a state-supported business, the Matanuska Maid Dairy. This was a fascist act of which Hitler and the National Socialists would be proud, sacking government officials, using intimidation, and promoting state-supported industry. She is being investigated now in a separate issue for firing the Commissioner of Public Safety because of his involvement with her sister’s ex-husband – the allegation being vindictive abuse of power.
In short, McCain has violated conservative principles completely. His choice of VP is a slap in the face of reason and the Republican party. Her theocratic tendencies are in violation of any conception of conservative values and in repudiation of the strength and value of the rational individual. She is clearly a bald-faced attempt to garner fundamentalist Christian support, which hardly was in danger of going for Obama anyway, so I don’t understand the strategy of this choice. And most Hillary supporters are not going to vote for a theocratic, moronic fascist because she has a vagina. In fact, such a choice shows a blatant disrespect for the intelligence and integrity of women.
This country for too long has been given the choice between the Socialist party and the Christian-Sharia Law party. Fantastic. I guess conservative, humanistic values are unthinkable to an unreasoned and uninformed people. I guess I blame the American people ultimately. As the Chinese people say, a people gets the government they deserve. We need a new party, the party of freedom, rationalism, capitalistic economic progress and national strength. This election has now become a culture and race war, the fundamentalist white Christians versus everyone else. This is not what America needed, unless obliterating these people from our national dialog is the beginning of the new tomorrow.
BTW In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m writing in Ron Paul.
