The Lesser of Two Evils?

Stephen said...

But is it practical to sit at home on your butt, on principal, and suffer those consequences...at least McCain's pick of Palin offers hope to those of us within the gun culture.

Thanks to Stephen in the comments section of my 'What will we do?' post for furthering the discussion on the matter. It's of interest to me, as this is the first election in my voting lifetime that I consider to be totally pointless. Generally election season is very stressful for me. I follow the presidential race quite closely and fret about what will become of the country if the Democrat wins.

I've stated my views rather frankly. I'll expound a bit on why I (a conservative Christian former Republican best described as a 'Constitutionalist') can't vote for McCain with a clean conscience.

I committed at the very begging of all this that there were three men in the Republican race who would never get my vote - the three RINOs. McCain, Romney, and Guiliani. The latter two are so socially liberal that I can't believe they ever got a single Republican vote. Moot point.

In order to consider McCain, I think it's important to look at him prior to the election (true of any candidate, really.) He's in 'get elected' mode now, which means he'll say anything to anybody to get a vote as long as it won't come back to haunt him later on a big enough scale. My beefs:

1. McCain-Feingold ('Campaign Finance Reform.') Blackout dates on free speech. Somewhere here in the near future, it will be illegal for me to actually blog on this election. I can't come up with any more blatant restriction of the First Amendment. I've become increasingly in-tune to rights violations, and I just haven't seen nearly as much trampling of the First Amendment as the Second and Fourth. (I grant you, that's a subjective observation, so I would welcome a challenge on the statement.) But Campaign Finance goes a long way towards making government controlled speech a reality.

2. The gun show loophole. He's no friend of gunowners and never has been. Go ahead and believe what he says today if you want, and get all excited about the cute sit-down he had with LaPierre and Cox a couple months ago, but I'm about ready to cut up my NRA membership card over it. Bitter enemies for how long? And now they're best friends. I'm equally as disgusted with Limbaugh, Hannity and all the other conservatives who at first hated him, but are now waving the pom-pons.

3. His greatest stated principle is his willingness to be 'a maverick' and go 'cross the aisle.' I don't doubt this guy would sell us out to socialized health care in a minute. Maybe he won't be the President that makes it his top agenda item like Obama, but if social medicine gets signed into law, what's the difference?

Palin - She doesn't change anything for me. I agree she seems like a good conservative, and if she was the candidate, I'd vote for her. But a VP doesn't really do very much, and I don't see any point in voting for him hoping he croaks so she can fill his spot.

So to those who plan to vote for him because he won't be 'as bad' as Obama, I'd like to know specifically what you think will be better. I'm not trying to be rude, bitter, or snide. You and I are probably very similar in our views, Stephen. But we've come to different conclusions about what to do, and I'm interested in your thoughts (or for that matter anyone else's who holds the same stance.)

For my part, I've almost reached the conclusion that the ballot box has failed.