Split Decision
by Jon on Sep.03, 2008, under Babble, Politics
Right-libertarian author J. Neil Schulman writes:
I believe Barack Obama when he says he wants to be President of the United States. This separates Obama from the last three presidents, who acted like they were — as author Brad Linaweaver put it in an astutely descriptive book — President of the World. Barack Obama’s rhetoric struck me as authentically populist and patriotic.
I also think Sarah Palin was chosen to be John McCain’s running mate for the same reason Jimmy Stewart’s Jefferson Smith was chosen in the 1939 Frank Capra classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The politicos running the Republican Party consider Mrs. Palin a hick from the sticks who’ll con the yokels with her sincerity but who will be essentially harmless to their nefarious plans to end American sovereignty, American independence, and American exceptionalism.
I think Mrs. Palin is a real patriot who might be as dangerous to her masters as Jeff Smith turned out to be.
Interesting. I can certainly see how this would appeal to a libertarian Republican. Hell, I might be on board if you could surgically remove Palin’s theocon fruitcake side and “fuck the planet, I want black gold” approach to energy policy (though of course the latter is why Schulman likes her). But you can’t be atrocious on both my pet issues AND on the single most important and comprehensive issue facing us and be a serious option for me.
September 8th, 2008 on 2:42 am
So why can’t I vote for John McCain, who’s probably ideologically closer to me (at least pro forma) than Barack Obama … and what makes me think Sarah Palin is better than anyone else in the field?
It’s not that I’m blind to Sarah Palin’s dogmatic position on abortion. I have my own dogma on the abortion question, which is that human beings really do have immortal souls separate from the flesh; that the position that human life begins with conception reduces to the absurdity that a soul can live within a single fertilized cell; and that the modern theology of the fundamentalist Christian actually aligns better with atheistic focus on biology than it does with the ancient Hebrew belief that the soul enters the body with the first breath.
I just don’t find the abortion question more of a wedge issue than two dozen equally egregious questions on where human rights begin and state power should end.
As for “Fuck the planet, I want black gold” — please. You really don’t expect anyone who has both lobes of their brain working to believe the horseshit on humans causing global warming with their carbon emissions, when (a) Al Gore doesn’t condemn as earth-destroyers people who eat hard-boiled eggs instead of frying them when water vapor, not CO2, is the primary greenhouse gas and (b) Mars –bereft of both gas-guzzling SUV’s and water vapor — has the same solar-radiation-controlled global warming as Earth?
I find John McCain to be an honest man, which is why I won’t vote for him. I believe him when he says he’ll work with Democrats. I don’t want a Republican President to work with Democrats. I want a Republican President who understands that the Democratic Party is made up of ignoramuses who never read a real economics book, and they need to be stopped.
I’ll vote for Barack Obama because even if he turns out to be a nightmare, he’ll be opposed by a minority party that might find its legs again — which won’t happen if their own party leader, John McCain, is in power and dedicated to compromise with agendas set by the opposition.
And maybe Obama might not be a nightmare. JFK wasn’t. Lightning might strike twice.
As for Sarah Palin, I don’t like her position on abortion, but at least she’s not a hypocrite about it. She didn’t abort her Downs Syndrome baby. I like that about her. It takes real guts to live your scruples when the personal challenges are daunting.
I like that she’s smart enough to know that global warming is crap, and courageous enough to tell the true believers — including John McCain — to shove it.
I love that she doesn’t waffle on guns like McCain does.
I love that she doesn’t give a damn for the goddamned globalist oil companies — who find it easier to buy from OPEC or Venzuela than to drill on the north slope of Alaska — and wants to free America from the tyranny of foreign oil.
And, when Barack Obama said he’d end American dependence on Middle Eastern oil in ten years, even if it meant going nuke, he told his own party’s fanatics to piss off … and won my vote.
So Obama-Palin, because they both tell the deluded fanatics in their own parties to take a hike.
Neil
September 8th, 2008 on 8:16 am
Thanks for dropping by! I’m not interested in having a global warming debate so we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that. Like I said, I do find your idea interesting. As someone who falls into the gray area between left-libertarian and libertarian-left, I’m generally supportive of Obama but generally not a fan of Biden, so the idea does have its appeal, or would if those two issues were not deal killers.