I am voting for John McCain because I believe the most important issue facing us this century is National Security, specifically Islamic Extremist Terrorists who want to destroy our great nation and all it stands for. It is no secret that John McCain and George W. Bush had an ugly, ugly battle for the nomination in 2000. They aren't exactly friends (Obama's portrayal of him as Bush's buddy is downright laughable). Bush is not a popular President and the Iraqi war is even more unpopular. Yet I believe that history will be kind to President Bush. Under his leadership, we've avoided another terrorist attack on our soil. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have put the battle in the terrorist's backyard, not ours. And more importantly, it our wonderful military who is fighting that battle, not our civilians!
IRA Leader Michael Collins said, "The goal of terrorism is to terrorize. It is the only way a small country can hope to defeat a large country." George Bush and John McCain understand this, so they're keeping the terrorists busy fighting our troops overseas. General Petraeus's surge is working. Iraq is well on it's way to being a free, democratic society after decades of a brutal dictatorship. Yet Barack Obama voted against the surge and wanted to cut and run in Iraq. Let's see: thousands of angry terrorists, no real leadership, and a nuclear Iran next door wanting to bring on Armageddon--surely I am not only person who doesn't see how that best serves our national interests? And yet that's exactly what Barack Obama wanted.
John McCain has decades of military experience. He uniquely knows the absolute hell our enemies can put our troops through because he spent five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. Simply being an American hero doesn't qualify him to lead our troops as Commander-in-Chief, though, his leadership experience and proven record of acting in the best interest of our Country, despite whatever the personal cost, does. He knows what it means to serve and will not send our troops into harms way unless absolutely necessary. But by that same token, he's also not going to prematurely pull our troops out of Iraq and announce to our enemies, "Yeah, we'll be completely out of here in 12 months, 15 days and 4 hours! So y'all just hang tight until then." Idiotic. Did Truman announce the arrival of our bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or release the plans for D Day well in advance? Of course not. Because telling our enemies how we're going to fight them is nothing short of lunacy. But that's exactly what Barack Obama wanted to do when he voted against the surge and in favor of a "timetable" for troop withdrawal. Without going into his great love of the UN, I simply do not think he is capable of acting in our country's best interests re: National Security.
I know, I know, seven years have passed without a terrorist attack, the tide has turned (thanks to the surge) and we're winning in Iraq, the "real" issue these days is the economy. And that's one more example of how the policies of the left have completely screwed things up. In the 90s, the Clinton administration decided that it was time to bring affirmative action to homeownership. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were mandated (by the then-democratic Congress) to increase lending to low and middle income borrowers. Welfare payments and unemployment benefits were seen as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. In 2001, Bush's chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, warned this was creating a huge risk for the entire financial system. He was pooh-poohed by the Democratic establishment as an alarmist. Apparently giving huge loans to people who can't afford them in the name of "fairness" is sound economic policy to Barney Frank (the fact that he was sleeping w/a big shot at Fannie Mae had nothing to do with any of it, I'm sure). When the housing bubble burst, the people who wouldn't have traditionally qualified for mortgages couldn't sell their homes to get out of the mortgages that they could no longer afford and hence the current credit crisis. Of course, Barack Obama says it is all George Bush's fault because Bush is currently in office. But make no mistake, it was the policies of the Clinton Administration and their efforts to bring equality to housing, that caused your 401K to lose probably half of its value and push your retirement back another 4-7 years.
Do I agree with McCain's current proposal to buy a bunch of bad mortgages? No, I don't. Frankly, four and a half years ago we bought a house we could afford and I don't really think my tax dollars should subsidize those who didn't do the same. Moreover, I think we need LESS government interference in our economy, not more. The markets (housing and stock) will eventually correct themselves and recover. The sooner the government backs off and lets that happen, the better.
Speaking of the government backing off...let's talk about health insurance. Barack Obama says health insurance is a right, but that if I like my HMO, I "can keep it." How very generous of him.
If this were a book (I know, if you've made it this far you're surprised it's not), this chapter would be titled: Hey Lefty Libs, clearly your mom forgot to tell you that life isn't fair. In a free-market, capitalist society, there are going to be haves and have nots. And some of those haves are going to have a lot (google Kennedy, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Pelosi, etc) and some of those have nots are going to live in abject poverty. And while abject poverty in the US is hardly abject poverty in, say, Somalia (most of our poor have it better than my parents did growing up in the 50s: they have cars, a/c, television), it sucks. However, the thing that makes this country great is the one thing everyone has in common. That is the opportunity for more.
Millions of people cross our borders every year looking for that opportunity. But I fear the land of opportunity is about to become the land of entitlements. When people start depending on the government, they stop depending on themselves. This is not what our founding fathers envisioned when they wrote our constitution, nor is it the shining city on a hill that Reagan saw. Rather it is far more like the ever-increasing socialism seen in Europe. Google France's economic situation--as bad as things are here, they'd kill for our current unemployment rate. France's unemployment rate has been in double digits for decades because of government interference and nationalization of what should be private sector markets. With a democratic Congress and the most liberal President since LBJ, that's exactly where we're heading.
Despite his claims to the contrary, Obama can NOT provide the entitlements he wants w/o raising taxes across the board. 20% of our taxpayers pay 80% of our taxes. By further increasing the taxes of high wage earners, Obama will effectively stifle economic growth and innovation. Why earn more than 249K when you're just going to have to fork it over to subsidize someone else? Obama has voted to raise taxes 94 times. He wants to immediately repeal Bush's tax cuts. Joe Biden called paying higher taxes "patriotic" on national tv. If Obama is elected and you pay taxes--your taxes will go up. Anything to the contrary is just political spin. Obama isn't "for" the working class or the middle class--look at his political connections! Tony Rezco (a multimillionaire developer on his way to prison) and Bill Ayres (a domestic terrorist) are hardly your average middle class taxpayers.
Obama doesn't share my value for human life, either. He once said that if his daughters should wind up with an unintended pregnancy, they shouldn't be "punished" with a baby. Unintended or not, I don't look as any infant as a "punishment." Despite refusing to take a real stand on many issues as a state senator (he voted "present" an astounding amount of times), he did twice argue in favor of a law that would prevent medical intervention on behalf of aborted babies born alive. There was a particularly well publicized case in the state of Illinois in which an RN found one such baby in a linen closet (where the doctor stuffed her after the botched abortion). The infant, who had Downs Syndrome, was held by that nurse for the remainder of her short time on Earth. If Obama had his way, that baby would have lived out its time in that linen closet or a trash can. That's not the kind of values I want in the man serving as my President.
I don't have time to get into illegal immigration (which is a huge national security issue) or gun control (also a national security issue, IMO), but suffice to say, the McCain/Palin ticket is far more in line with my values on those topics than Obama/Biden. I don't always agree with McCain (the mortgage bailout completely burns me, for example), but I can't think of a single issue in which I agree with Obama. Not a single one. Which is why I picked up my McCain/Palin yard sign this morning from my local RNC HQ and proudly popped it into the yard.
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