Gotta Go Bama... reluctantly In light of the brutish mysticism of McCain/Palin,
best hope "for man on earth" is a nod to the Big O
Revising my stand from a piece where I recommend the Libertarian option, I come to the conclusion that basic rationality and civilization beseech a landslide Obama victory on November 4. (Aside from that I think—per Correspondent Dave and others—we should vote for any Republican representative who initially voted down the recent Wall Street extortion package and generally any Republican legislative candidate who has good sense and has explicitly repudiated George Bush's policies effectively... which unfortunately is a short list.)
The ideal would be to have true fiscal conservatives from whatever party in the majority of both houses. I think Obama may surprise us—he's stated he'll be a 'pay as you go' prez—but one never knows about these things. If he's truly not going to spend money on anything unless he first has the money, then we're in for a government diet unlike anything we've ever imagined.
Why should libertarians, in particular, vote for Obama en masse?[1]
It's becoming crystal clear McCain/Palin are trying to beat a horse that won't die easily, namely the horse of these ubiquitous home-grown barbarians who call themselves conservatives (and are anything but) and who are casting anyone who disagrees with their Neoconservative love-it-or-leave-it militarism as terrorists... who deserve to be tortured and killed. Especially all Democrats and liberals. Especially Obama-Biden. (And I'm pretty sure if you're a libertarian, that doesn't score you any points with these Neocons either.) Check out this column from Bob Cesca.
Gentle readers, these people who are calling for the death of "Osama Hussein" Obama must be countered massively, or even if Obama wins, they'll remain a toxic killer in our body politic. That is fundamentally why civilized, rational, informed human beings in America must vote for the Democratic presidential ticket this year.
I argued similarly in 2004. Like Bush vs. Kerry, McCain vs. Obama is not a choice between the lesser of two mild evils. Rather it is the choice between, on the one hand, abject criminality/malfeasance/superstition and, on the other hand, someone who may be confused on basic market economics, who may turn too blind an eye to state coercion in service of the HEW syndrome[2], but otherwise is a decent human being who will usher in a fresh breath of open, civil government.
It's the choice between a murderer and a pickpocket, where inadequate support of the pickpocket aids and abets murderous unreason on an unprecedented scale.
It's all coming to a head, and I think, I hope, the vast majority of the American voting public is beginning to see the truth.
By now many of you know the Brian Theory of 'who rules'.
However one characterizes the West's oligarchy of money power, it's clear from the recent financial crises, from the rise of the Obama phenomenon, and more important from the spreading awareness of how government central banking works to impoverish the productive class (for the benefit of the political class), that this oligarchy is reaching the end of its rope. Arianna Huffington's column today (10/21/08) opines how Karl Rove's methods of securing low-level democratic hegemony—primarily for the explicit American-imperialist class—are failing. Like a drug that no longer stimulates the addict to thrilling peaks of bloodlust.
Last night I caught the replay of the 10/17 show of Real Time with Bill Maher, in which his panelists were uniformly antiwar: Martin Short, Ben Affleck, and Independent Congressman from Vermont Bernie Sanders. The latter gentleman was eloquent in his righteous condemnation of what the Republican presidential campaign is doing this year; and he warned us how this visceral "demonization of the left"—to the level I'm discussing in this column where Democrats and liberals are shouted down as traitors and terrorists—enables pure right-wing tyranny of the most horrific kind.
And he's absolutely right
Sadly, Sanders makes his case against uncivil politics as an advocate of democratic socialism. Socialism as government control and ownership of the means of production; Obama is at most a 20% socialist, which is where most Democrats find themselves on the political spectrum. Republicans, according to the definition, are socialists, too: Democrats seek to redistribute wealth to the poor, Republicans seek to redistribute wealth to the rich.[4] As libertarians, we know the ideal is to end the redistribution of wealth entirely; that's our distinction and our calling.
Despite the absence of the libertarian alternative being presented on Bill Maher, I have the sense that a massive understanding of the "excluded option" of liberty—the nonaggressionn principle—lies just beneath the surface of his guests and his audience. All it's going to take is "the little boy calling the emperor naked"—in the context of a major news program or political or variety show—to unleash a whole new kind of energy. It's happening already, if you watch The Daily Show, or Bill Maher, or Keith Olbermann. Thin end of the wedge. We all saw what happened with the Ron Paul campaign, and our ideas are not going away, they're gaining critical mass... among many other Republicans, and some Democrats.
The question is
will That One tune into the freedom vibe. Yes, I think so, at least partly. Clearly Barack enjoys conversing with others, indeed, with all Americans—recall the footage of his eye-to-eye chat with 'Joe the Plumber'—and he listens as well. I know we have a libertarian Democrat in the Free State House of Representatives. Thomas Jefferson was a Democrat (or was it Democratic Republican?). So at least there's some precedent. And with McCain/Palin you're going to get 1984 all over again: your neighborhood will look like the streets of St. Paul during the 2008 Republican National Convention. With M/P, freedom has zero chance.
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No, Obama isn't the savior of humankind; but a) he can win[5], b) any of his socialist tendencies is defanged by economic and political reality, c) he knows the Constitution and is inclined to listen to new ideas, d) he will (probably) lay down a substantial firebreak to the menacing police state, and e) if he wins BIG, the money-power-incited lynch mobs (and media)—and possibly the money-power elites themselves—will have been dealt a devastating blow.
Yes, the Rush Limbaughs and Dittoheads will still be out there hanging from the trees, but they will lose all credibility as moral leaders— particularly as we freedom people press the attack against coarse irrationality deep into the Hinterland.
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[1] Yes, I still think a vote for Libertarian Bob Barr is rational and proper. I've even contributed to his campaign and talked him up among the liberty-inclined. A substantial vote total for Barr (5% is probably the most any state can hope for) represents a firm, articulate political conviction that the winners, being political, will pay attention to. That's a very good argument, and if you vote for Barr I salute you... especially if you were going to vote for McCain. Yet, I've come over to the greater need for overwhelming popular-vote disapproval for the vicious, mindless, goosestepping bubbas and their inciters represented by Captain Queeg and the Stepford Wife.
[2]
Health, Education, and Welfare. I'm referring to the left's predilection for seeing the state as inextricable from human well being in these areas, particularly at the federal government level.
[3] There are several sources for demonstrating that the Rove-led Bush campaigns fraudulently won the 2000 election and the 2004 election. My favorite for the former contest is
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, by Greg Palast, and for the latter it's this piece in the Rolling Stone.
[4] At least that's what they tell us. In reality, the money seems to go mainly to those who are politically connected... to them.
[5]
Note this column is only directed to Americans who consider voting a beneficial act for civil society—at least politically prudent. (Some genuine liberty activists take the position that voting constitutes a moral sanction for the system that could not oppress us were we to withhold that sanction. I respect that argument; at one time I shared it. But today I hold that not to vote or not to participate in democratic processes is like being Amish and refusing to use Amish tools to build the barn... For another time.)
