This is an invitation to anyone who might want to add a comment to this post on the following subject: which presidential candidate do you plan to vote for, and why?
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2 comments:
I consider myself to be a good friend of yours and I am deeply disappointed than you have surrendered to the dark side. Let me preface my comments by saying that neither candidate floats my boat but Obama is positively scary. I am deeply troubled by his socialist leanings, his desire for income redistribution and the "class conflict" that will result. I find his friends and associates to be equally troubling. I know, I know, no guilt by association but I must ask myself what is it in Obama that appeals to a despicable swine like William Ayers. Why did he seek out Marxist professors at Columbia, as he himself has said? What is it about Marxism that he finds interesting? I am also troubled by the clear campaign fraud in his fund raising - for all we know, his massive war chest was underwritten (a word you will appreciate) by the Russians, Chinese or Saudis. Why disable the security features on credit card contributions unless you affirmatively wish to enable such behavior? I am also distreessed that Obama suports "card check" which will displace the secret ballot in union elections. What is democratic about that? Any infringement of voting rights is unamerican. Perhaps what bothers me most is that he seems to say whatever his audience wants to hear. What will happen if, as Biden conjectures, he is tested? Will he order our soldiers (including possibly my son, a lieutenant in the Army) into harm's way only to abandon the effort when the left loudly pronounces our efforts to be imperialistic - like Clinton did in Somalia? I don't think he has any firmly held core beliefs - at least none that he has chosen to reveal. There is a reason the terrorists who still seek to do us harm want him elected - they do not fear him. As far as your comments about Sarah Palin - we have only the prism of a supremely hostile MSM through which to judge her. Mother Teresa would come off looking bad under such circumstances. The prospect of an Obama victory - which I fervently pray does not come to pass (even tho I am an atheist and don't actually pray - odd thing for a Republican I know)- fills me with despair. Obama is very lucky that he is so eloquent. If he wasn't, he would assuredly still be a hack local politician in the IL legislature. I agree that eloquence is a valuable skill, one neither Bush nor McCain possess, but it is no substitute for character, courage, a clear moral compass, tenacity and a willingness to do the right thing when it is not the popular thing. It is my firmly held belief that if Obama is elected, we will come to regret it.
Thank you for your comment.
The U.S. has practiced income redistribution ever since the progressive income tax was implemented more than 90 years ago. The numbers have shifted back and forth through the decades. But each increase in marginal income tax rates subsequent to the Reagan Revolution of 1981 has kept the top marginal rate below the level to which the Reagan bill reduced it, and Obama’s plan will do the same.
There is a famous quotation from Richard Nixon: “We are all Keynesians now.” During the last quarter-century or so, the motto could be, “We’re all Reaganites now”, even though Democrats don’t admit to that.
One is free to argue that there should be no income redistribution, i.e., no progressive income tax and no government payments to the poor. But I don’t think one can argue that that would be a concept introduced into America for the first time by Obama. And I think that many, if not most, of us who are registered Republican support some degree of income redistribution, although we may well argue over the extent. What I oppose is government giveaways to those who are not poor.
Marxism at Columbia? I flirted with radical ideas in college, so I suppose that disqualifies me for president, which is probably a good thing. Although it’s interesting that I was still less far left than my most famous professor, Paul Wellstone.
Say whatever his audience wants to hear? That gets at one of the most difficult questions in politics: how does an elected representative strike a balance between 1) doing what they think is right; and 2) doing what their constituents want them to do? For a politician who formerly represented a state senate district on the south side of Chicago, and now wants the entire country as his constituency, I don’t think it’s inappropriate for him to deliver a different message now than he did then.
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