Since I left the Minnesota State Republican Convention in May, I have paid less attention to the current political race than I did before. There just isn’t enough of a difference between the candidates to get me excited. Ron Paul is gone, and he was the only candidate that showed any promise for real change. The candidates in the race today that offer real change are not in either faction of the major political party.
Case in point, on just a few issues, I came across < a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/node/8603">this article, which does a decent job of showing just how little difference there is between the two candidates running in the main party:
Environment
Obama: Supports “implementation of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.â€
McCain: Proposes “a cap-and-trade system that would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions while encouraging the development of low-cost compliance options†which would return emissions in 2050 to 60 percent below 1990 levels.
Hot air: Both proposals accept as gospel truth the politically-correct orthodoxy of anthropomorphic (manmade) global warming. In point of fact, there is little scientific evidence that global climate change, including recent warming temperatures, have anything to do with human activity. The anti-industrial bias of radical environmentalism has much more to do with the global-warming hysteria than sound science. Yet both candidates have accepted the need to reduce industrial emissions to combat this alleged menace. If emissions must be regulated, then state and local governments are more than adequate to the task and, unlike the federal government, are not necessarily constitutionally barred from doing so.
Mortgage Crisis
Obama: Will “create a fund to help people refinance their mortgages and provide comprehensive supports to innocent homeowners.â€
McCain: “Under his HOME Plan, every deserving American family or homeowner will be afforded the opportunity to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects their home’s market value.â€
Mortgaging the future: The federal government has no constitutional mandate to subsidize housing purchases, and its decades of meddling in the mortgage industry have seriously distorted the workings of the free market. More regulation, such as both Obama and McCain are proposing, will only exacerbate the problem.
Soaring College Costs
Obama: “Obama will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students.†Obama also advocates streamlining the process of applying for federal college aid.
McCain: “John McCain is proposing a student loan continuity plan. Students face the possibility that the credit crunch will disrupt loans for the fall semester. John McCain calls on the federal government and the 50 governors to anticipate loan problems and expand the lender-of-last resort capabilities for each state’s guarantee agency.â€
School daze: Subsidized student loans drive education costs far beyond what the market would otherwise support. Oh, and by the way: fedgov student loans aren’t authorized anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. Yet both candidates are happy to continue federal subsidies of college education in one form or another.
Healthcare
Obama: Will create a new national health plan for all Americans, which will include guaranteed eligibility and comprehensive benefits. Also wants to create a National Health Insurance Exchange, which will help Americans shop for health insurance and impose new regulations on the industry. Health insurance for children will be mandatory, and Medicaid will be expanded, among many other ambitious proposals.
McCain: Wants to work with states to develop a “Guaranteed Access Plan (GAP)†that will provide health insurance for the uninsured, and to “reform the payment systems in Medicaid and Medicare.†McCain also wants the federal government to promote easier access to healthcare, smoker cessation programs, the “rapid deployment of 21st century information systems and technology,†and “the establishment of national standards for measuring and recording treatment and outcomes.â€
Bad medicine: Ballooning healthcare costs have coincided with federal involvement in the healthcare industry, which has brought us socialized medicine in everything but name. Nevertheless, both Obama and McCain, following the lead of “Hillary Care†a decade ago, both want to use the federal government to “reform†American healthcare. Believe it or not, free markets once upon a time provided affordable healthcare and insurance for most Americans, and would do so again if the Federal Government got out of the healthcare business altogether. And did we mention that federal meddling in healthcare is unconstitutional?
Trade
Obama: While pledging to oppose the Central American Trade Agreement, Obama wants to “pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and nontariff barriers on U.S. exports.†Moreover, “Obama will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers.â€
McCain: “Ninety-five percent of the world’s customers lie outside our borders and we need to be at the table when the rules for access to those markets are written. To do so, the U.S. should engage in multilateral, regional and bilateral efforts to reduce barriers to trade, level the global playing field and build effective enforcement of global trading rules.â€
Trading away our independence: What about getting out of sovereignty-sapping trade agreements like NAFTA and the WTO altogether? Neither candidate wants to do that, and no candidate with such a proposal would be allowed anywhere near the White House. Yet in the past decade, the World Trade Organization has become a global trade ministry, and even threatened the Bush administration with sanctions a few years ago over a policy dispute with the EU. Such international and regional trade agreements, as the European experience with the Common Market-turned-European Union has shown, are intended as economic precursors to full-fledged transnational government.
A truly independent United States of America would have nothing to do with NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, or any of the other entities that enforce “global trading rules.†The only alternative consistent with American independence is complete withdrawal from all of these organizations.
Foreign Policy
Obama: Favors complete withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months. Wants to strengthen NATO, to “rally NATO members to contribute troops to collective security operations, urging them to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization operations, streamlining the decision-making processes, and giving NATO commanders in the field more flexibility.†Not a word to say about the United Nations or our continued membership in the world body.
McCain: Favors a stronger military better equipped to fight “21st century wars,†as well as a national missile defense shield. No mention of our membership in NATO or the United Nations.
Entanglements: Neither candidate would ever consider withdrawing from NATO, the United Nations, and other “entangling alliances†that drag us into regional conflicts where we have no business getting involved. The best thing we can do for our troops is to bring them home, where they can defend America’s borders rather than those of South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, or dozens of other countries whose defense is not our responsibility. And while we’re at it, Get US out of the UN, permanently!
Inflation and the Economic Downturn
Obama: Would provide additional tax rebates to Americans. Obama’s platform takes note of rising prices but suggests nothing to address the problem. Again, the Federal Reserve System is left unmentioned.
McCain: Wants to provide unspecified help to “Americans hurting from high food and gas costs.†He will “act immediately to reduce the pain of high gas prices.†Oh, and he’ll also “end policies that contribute to higher transportation and food costs,†such as the ethanol subsidy and sugar quotas. No mention of the Federal Reserve System or its role in creating inflation.
Funny money: Any candidate serious about returning the American economy to a sound footing would insist on phasing out the Federal Reserve System, whose unbacked paper money has been responsible for rising prices decade after decade. Neither Obama nor McCain would touch such a proposal with a 10-foot pole, however. Nor would either candidate do anything to reestablish the bimetallic (silver and gold) system of currency that our forefathers enjoyed, or to confine the federal government to its constitutional role of “coining†(not printing) money. Tax rebates and tinkering with commodity subsidies are like using bandages to treat a malignant tumor.
Why is it that when candidates have minor differences, the almost always share a socialist/unconstitutional view? In my lifetime, I have never seen two candidates argue about who was going to cut more government programs, or take a stricter interpretation of the Constitution. It just doesn’t happen. Occasionally they promise to nominate justices to the Supreme Court who will take a stricter view of the Constitution, but they seem to do so with the comfort of knowing that it takes five justices on the court to hand down a ruling. The Democrat always promises to fleece the “haves” more and give more to the “have-nots.” The Republican tends to promise to fleece the “haves” less (though he says, implicitly or explicitly, that he still intends to fleece them), while still giving as much as possible to the “have-nots.”
Since the last nail was driven into the coffin of Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign, I have determined to shift my allegiance back to where it normally is in this stage of a Presidential race, the Constitution Party. I haven’t yet had time to really get to know who Chuck Baldwin, their candidate, is – but if his articles at the Christian Worldview Network are any indication, I will have a very clear conscience giving him my vote in November.
It grieves me greatly to watch my country deteriorate into socialist tyranny. The pilgrims came over and settled in the New World to better have the opportunity to live and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Individual liberty, personal responsibility, and minimal government are what made this country first into the envy of the world, and then into a superpower. A disregard for those principles is sadly what will be it’s ultimate demise.
But where to liberty-minded individuals go to escape? The United States gets away with tyranny because it is still just a little bit more free than everyone else.