So at this point I’ve seen I don’t know how many people complaining about liberal this, new Muslim president that, he’s an illegal alien, Barack HUSSEIN Obama is going to ruin the country, etc, etc, etc. And I can’t help but think; how do you call yourself a patriot? Do you really care about our country? There comes a point after an election where you have to take a step back and say well, we lost; I don’t agree with the principles that the candidate who won has set forth but for the sake of our country I hope I am wrong and he is right. It is realistic to be worried but to pander to the lowest common denominator falls right into what people who think opposite to you love to see while they gloat. Its amazing the people that come out of the wood work when they are up and you are down; to add kindling to their fire, lighted by your ignorance, is not only self defeating but makes anyone else who is from a “red state” or sees things a certain way appear as “backwards” as the garbage that you put forth. As President Bush said today no matter how Americans cast their ballots, they should be proud of the history that was made yesterday and the progress the vast majority of our country has made. If anyone chases their dreams they can accomplish anything in this great country, no more excuses. It is beautiful that people can freely disagree with a peaceful transfer of power at the end of a democratic election where hopefully (at least on my end there’s not) any ill will towards the other side. As someone once said, “The American eagle has a left wing and a right wing, so let that eagle soar.”
Not horribly long ago there was a situation similar to this one. Besides being a sleazy horn dog, Bill Clinton did a good job of soon realizing (well three years into his presidency) that he had to move to the center to run the country; being too far to the left would not work. Hopefully a new President-Elect Obama will figure that out sooner; although his past associations, possible choice of Chief of Staff (Rham Emanuel could not be more partisan), state voting record, and senate voting record would point against that (97% record of voting w/ his party in the Senate); his campaign, one of the best managed probably in the history of our country all respects to Karl Rove seemed to have moved more to the center in at least foreign affairs the last few days and weeks. Is that a sign of more moderate views to come? Obama will hopefully go in and like Clinton say well I campaigned to lower taxes and raise them for the rich but we are in a recession and we can’t do that right now; likewise with his other campaign promises that in this current environment are doomed to fail. He is an intelligent man and I am sure he is aware of a backlash now just like then should he scorn the middle road to become Pelosi and Reed’s right hand.
Now let me explain. I am a conservative in a way that is not new although lately the word has been twisted to mean republican just as liberal is now a democrat; which is not a true definition of either really. Reagan, in attempting to define conservativism, said: “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.” This was even earlier articulated by Edmund Burke, who in his ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ wrote,…”It is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor’s security, expressed or implied…The public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.” Read the rest of this entry »
