The Presidential Election – Part II: The Candidates and the Two Parties

This is my second article in a series on the election. Yes, I know the election is now only a few days away. Unfortunately I’ve been very busy with some volunteer work and now with selling my house. But I figure better late than never.

Judging the Two Parties

First of all I want to say that I have heard two people say, in recent months, that they select a candidate not based on which party they are from, but only on that candidate’s issues and character. The party doesn’t matter, they say.

While this seems plausible on the surface, when you look a little deeper this is a completely absurd idea, especially on the national political scene.

The two political parties really do stand for completely different visions of America. And most especially on the national scene, you cannot vote for a Democratic Party candidate, without getting a complete Democratic Party package. The same is true with Republicans.

I’ve covered a bit on what the two parties stand for in past articles, but let’s review.

The Democratic Party, especially nationally, stands for: welfare, affirmative action, pro-abortion (including allowing minors to get an abortion without even notifying the parents), for partial birth abortion (a gruesome practice), removing any religious expression from any public area (see recent ACLU efforts), higher taxes, on the middle class and upper middle class (including class warfare), gay rights including same-sex marriages, being against a national sales tax, subverting the Second Amendment, i.e. gun control, anti-military and anti-intelligence agencies, and for cutting the funding for these efforts, against enforcing immigration laws, being against the idea of personal responsibility, for radical environmentalism, and for more government, i.e. government solutions to all problems. And there is a much higher percentage of secular world-views (i.e. not believing in God or any supreme being) amongst Democrats and blue state regions

The Republican Party nationally stands for: being against welfare, against affirmative action, against abortion, Republicans passed a ban on partial birth abortion which was somehow ruled unconstitutional by liberal activist judges, Republicans are for public expression of religion, along with over 70% of the public (President Bush’s faith-based initiatives plan was vigorously fought by Democrats), President Bush got the largest tax cut passed since the 80s, which over the past 6 months has given us the highest economic indicators in 20 years. Bush has pushed for an Amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as between a man and woman. The Republican Speaker of the House has come out in favor of a National Sales Tax. Republicans support gun ownership rights. Republicans fight for adequate military and intelligence activity to protect our citizens. Conservatives are also weak on immigration enforcement, but there is more support for enforcement on the right than there is on the left. Conservatives support the concepts of personal responsibility, self-reliance and are against dependency. Conservatives feel that environmentalists are basing their campaigns on false or misleading data.

So when you vote for a Democrat or a Republican for President, those lists above are what you’re getting.

President Bush

I’d like to comment on the job President Bush has done and why I believe he should be re-elected.

First of all, I like the way that President Bush has handled the war on terrorism. He did not buy into the lie that the attacks were our own fault, as former President Clinton and other liberals said shortly after 9/11.

He correctly targeted and pursued the terrorists themselves as being responsible. He refused to appease the terrorists, or treat it like a "law enforcement" problem as Clinton had done for 8 years. President Bush is firm in his resolve the stay the course with Iraq and the overall war on terrorism.

While Kerry thinks that Bush unnecessarily angered our key allies; France, Germany, and Russia, by invading Iraq, we have since found out that officials from these countries were actually receiving bribes and sweet financial deals from Saddam Hussein under the wildly corrupt UN "Oil for Food" program. So while President Bush decided to end the regime of a terrible despot engaging in murder, rape, torture, and paying the families of terrorist suicide bombers, these countries turned their backs on their responsibility to humanity while they lined their own pockets.

With allies like these, perhaps we don’t need to care whether we anger them. The UN and especially France and Germany are morally bankrupt.

Under President Bush’s watch, 50 million people have been liberated in Afghanistan and Iraq. Elections are now occurring in Afghanistan and soon will happen in Iraq. This never even gets mentioned in the partisan leftist media of course.

The war in Iraq has incurred only 1,100 US casualties. Though we cannot minimize their sacrifice, this number is FAR less than in other wars, and we achieved victory in generally far less time. Of course, there are still terrorists gathering in Iraq, trying to cause trouble and discourage the American public so they will vote for Kerry, but this just underscores the size of the problem.

But just because there are more terrorists out there, does that mean we should shrink from handling the problem, like the cowardly Spanish have done?

Shortly after we attacked Iraq, Libya admitted that it was developing WMDs and turned them over to the US.

We have not had a single attack on US soil since 9/11. Considering the magnitude of 9/11, this is an amazing accomplishment. Bush decided to take the fight to the terrorists, instead of waiting for them to strike here again. And to paraphrase what Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has said, I would rather have the battle going on in the terrorists’ backyard than in Wisconsin or Ohio or California.

George W. Bush pushed through the biggest tax cuts since Ronald Reagan. Despite the constant negative carping by the press, the economy has rebounded in recent months with the strongest economic indicators in 20 years. John Kerry and other liberals completely opposed the tax cuts by the way, and Kerry plans to rescind them if he is elected.

In my opinion President Bush approaches the job of President in a very positive, optimistic manner.

Bush is very religious and pro-religion. His faith-based initiatives allow religions to get funding for their social reform work. Democrats have attacked Bush because they think he is "too religious" or that leaders shouldn’t base their decisions on religious convictions. I for one admire someone with strong religious convictions and believe that leaders SHOULD base decisions on religious convictions.

I have not agreed with everything President Bush has done. Specifically, I am very opposed to his support of the mental health field (i.e. psychiatry), which I consider a dismal failure and barbaric in its treatment methods. But on the other hand, Kerry is very supportive of psychiatry as well, so voting for Kerry is not a solution in this area.

I have disagreed with Bush over his plan for illegal immigrants, which I consider a de facto amnesty. I have disagreed with him on the prescription drug benefit program, because that’s just more socialism.

But overall President Bush’s conservative policies align much more closely with the way I believe the country should be being handled.

Senator John Kerry

In four different recent years, including for 2003, the National Journal selected John Kerry as the most liberal Senator in America, i.e. more liberal than the other 99 Senators.

Kerry has voted in favor of abortion rights, gun control and environmental protection. He was one of only 14 senators (all Democrat) who voted against a 1996 federal law that would have discouraged same-sex marriages. He voted against the law last year to ban partial-birth abortions. He has voted against several measures to require parental notification before a minor could get an abortion.

Kerry has proposed a national health care proposal, which he hopes to get through Congress if he becomes President, which critics say will cost $1.5 trillion in the first ten years.

Kerry on the Military and Intelligence

Although he has recently tried to make himself sound like he would be tough with terrorists, John Kerry has been consistently against any type of use of military force throughout his entire political career.

He spoke out against the Vietnam War both before and after his tour of duty. He was consistently against Ronald Reagan’s actions against the Soviet Union that successfully brought the USSR down. Kerry voted against the first Gulf War, even though it contained all the elements that he claims George W. Bush should have had before going into Iraq last year, including UN approval and the participation of more allies.

John Kerry has voted consistently against military spending. He voted against the B-1 Bomber, the B-2 Stealth Bomber, the F-14, F-15, F-16, AV-8B Jet Fighters, AH-64 Apache Helicopters, Patriot Missiles, the Trident Missile Systems for submarines, the M-1 Abrams Tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and the Tomahawk Cruise Missile.

A couple months ago, President Bush pressed Kerry on whether he would have still voted to authorize force against Iraq, if he knew then what he knew now about weapons of mass destruction. He said that he still would have voted Yes. But since then he has said that the war in Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." So was it right or wrong?

The UN

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in December 2003, Kerry said he would ”go to the United Nations and travel to our traditional allies to affirm that the United States has rejoined the community of nations”.

Kerry’s assertions amount to wanting to give the UN and some of our allies veto power over our foreign policy, or what some conservatives have called "outsourcing our foreign policy." Can we afford to give such morally bankrupt entities that kind of control?

Flip-Flopping

Many people have rightly criticized Kerry for flip-flipping back and forth on major issues.

I think the reason that Kerry flip-flops so much has to do with his Democratic base and his character. The problem is that the Democratic Party is largely made up of small groups, each with one issue or a set of issues. For example, teachers unions, government employee unions, attorneys, gays, Hispanics, blacks (though Democrats are starting to lose the black vote), environmentalists, pro-abortion people, feminists, and welfare recipients, all typically vote Democrat.

The problem for Kerry is that none of these groups individually make up anything close to a majority of the population. So he or any Democratic candidate must cobble together a coalition of groups that often disagree with each other.

Early on in the primaries, it became clear that there was a solid block of voters that were vehemently against the war in Iraq, many of whom threw their initial support to Howard Dean. But Kerry knows these people don’t make up a majority of the population, so he can’t win by just appealing to the anti-war crowd. So he must court them with occasional speeches saying this was the "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." But then other times he has to admit that he’d still vote for the war even with all he knows now. And he has tried to talk tough and say how he’d fight a better, though "more sensitive" war on terror.

Other times, he will make a speech in front of an environmental group and say how bad SUVs are, and how he doesn’t own one. Then when confronted by the press with the fact that he owns 5 different SUVs, he said that his family owns those, those aren’t his.

So I think we’re confronted with a candidate who will say virtually anything to anyone in order to get their vote. In other words, an opportunist.

So it’s not a matter of indecision. But it is a failure to stand up for what he believes in. And in some cases, a failure to accurately state what he really believes.

The Most Important Election of Our Time

I believe this Presidential election to be the most important of our time.

Liberalism had free reign in the US up until the 1980s. Reagan was the first to begin rolling back liberalism, and was fiercely fought by Democrats and the overwhelmingly liberal media, Hollywood and college faculties. Then we had George Bush Senior who wasn’t quite as conservative as Reagan. Then we had 8 years of liberalism under Clinton, though he was much more of a centrist than ultra-liberal John Kerry, and he was held back by a Republican majority in Congress for part of the time.

During the past 20 years, as I’ve mentioned in other articles, we have seen the appearance and explosion of a true alternative conservative media. The mainstream news media no longer controls our access to information.

Due to Reagan, Bush Sr., the conservative alternative media, the Republican control of Congress and now George W. Bush being in the White House, there has been a major shift in America. A real conservative movement has grown up. This movement holds conservative views and questions the assumptions of liberalism that held sway for 50-60 years.

George W. Bush’s response to the war on terrorism has been a true example of conservatism. Defend America (liberals won’t), select the correct target and blame the insane terrorists (liberals always blame America first), and defy the morally bankrupt UN and old Europe on Iraq (which would have been unthinkable under Clinton or even any previous conservative President).

As a result, the partisan liberal media, Hollywood, and college faculties have been screaming bloody murder and criticizing every aspect of George W. Bush’s Presidency, ever since he took office. Attack lines have been endlessly repeated long after they have been discredited. The propaganda machine has been running at full roar for over a year now.