11-05-2012
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Results?
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Subject: Some Final Reflections On The Election
On the eve of the U.S. Presidential election, like many other people,
I thought I would jot down a few final observations.
For liberty-loving people, the past decade in this country has been
exhausting. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks we find ourselves
saddled—apparently permanently—with the draconian
Patriot
Act which drastically expands unchecked government powers at
the expense of our individual rights and personal privacy. Our
medical and insurance industries have been further socialized, first
through the addition of Bush's
Medicare
Prescription Drug entitlement, followed by the imposition of
Obamacare.
The automotive industry was nationalized, while the rules of law were
simply ignored, and those with government contacts and pull were
undeservedly rewarded. Declaring the financial sector "too
big to fail," it became the handmaiden of politicians through
expanded regulation (Dodd-Frank)
and bailouts
(TARP).
The overall financial health of the country has been crippled by
Obama's anti-business regulatory and tax policies coupled with his
Keynesian-driven
reckless spending, record deficits ($16.2 trillion) and inflation of
the money supply. Obama has also demonstrated that it is his intention
to disarm America and replace national sovereignty with our submission
to a U.N. World Government. And those are just some of the low
points.
Over one year ago, back during the primaries, as I saw one Republican
candidate after another being viciously attacked by the Democrats and
the left-leaning media, I wrote the following:
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[Obama's] best reelection chances rest with Romney getting the
nomination, and that is why he and his army are working so
hard to see to this by discrediting every candidate that
offers a real alternative.
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Well, they were successful and Romney ended up as the last man
standing. And what in November 2011 appeared to be a slam-dunk
win for the Republicans has now, not all that surprisingly, been
relegated to a complete toss-up.
I have been an advocate of voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian
candidate in this election. This is the first time I have voted
Libertarian and it was a choice made for me by the Republican Party
which, towards the end, reduced itself down to Santorum and Romney,
the only two candidates for whom I absolutely refused to cast my vote.
In life we each have to draw various lines that we simply will not
cross, and in the case of this election, while I am 100% in agreement
that Obama must go, the Republican Party lowered itself below my
threshold of acceptability. In absolute terms, Romney's lack of
integrity, his failure to hold any specific ideology or philosophy,
and his totally unprincipled pragmatism all place him so far from
the limits of reasonable that no relativistic argument comparing him
favorably in contrast to Obama can compensate and justify my support.
Obviously, my threshold is quite different from others who have decided
to support Romney, and that is certainly each individual's call to
make. At the end of the day we all must do what we believe is in our
best interest.
This year, some people view a second Obama term as potentially a death
knell for America, and see their vote as principally a matter of
preserving the country from imminent destruction. While many of these
people do not view Romney favorably, they are willing to adopt a
"lesser-of-two-evils" approach and cast their vote for him,
despite their deep-seated reservations. While I understand this
position, as I argued in my previous election piece, Voting in
2012, this is a strategy that has been tried over and over
again and has failed, in the long-term, to yield favorable results.
In opposition to this approach of working to hold back the tide
of destruction, I rail against lowering my vision to the level of
simply responding to the continual threats being made against me and
my life by the likes of our current politicians. There is a tragic
political game afoot which constantly offers us only a Hobson's
choice between two generally bad alternatives. If our
political system has been reduced to a level where standing for one's
principles is no longer acceptable, then I want no part of it. If
involvement in the political process is nothing more than reducing a
negative rather than acting in service of something positive and
inspiring, then what is the point? And if we accept these terms, what
does it say about our spirit?
Yes, we are all exhausted, and especially so by the past four years,
because we are constantly playing defense in a game with the rules
written by our enemies — and there is nothing more draining than
that. Regardless the outcome of tomorrow's election, it is time to
issue a clarion call to all people to exit the game, abandon the false
choices being offered, and choose to dedicate our future efforts to
a positive vision of our own choosing. It is time for individuals to
reject our position as chattel and uncompromisingly assert our
status as sovereign individuals. Or as Howard Roark put it:
I wanted to state my terms.
I do not care to work or live on any others.
My terms are a man's right to exist for his own sake.
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