Ladies and gentlemen, the unthinkable is happening in the United States, and I would like to thank everyone who voted for Barack Obama and his Leftist congressional colleagues in the 2008 election cycle. The popular outrage against Bill Clinton in 1994 paled in comparison to the round of spirited debate that has been generated by the "progressive" proposals currently circulating in Washington D.C. From cap-and-trade, to "stimulus" packages, to healthcare "reform," the Left has tipped its hand, believing it has a mandate from the American people to quickly ram the last vestiges of socialism down its throat. Obama may have been disingenuous on the campaign trail – with the exception of a few "gaffs" such as the Joe the Plumber remark – but he has exposed himself since taking office, and we owe it all to John McCain and Sarah Palin.
The McCain/Palin ticket differed little from the Obama/Biden in form, and only minimally in substance. Palin was certainly a wildcard and in some ways an anti-establishment addition to a statist ticket. Heck, her husband at one time possibly supported Alaskan independence. But without question, if McCain had won, the United States would have continued on its slow plodding course toward national socialism, though many conservative Americans would have felt secure because the man who held office had an "R" behind his name. See George W. Bush. Americans may be shocked by our current headfirst plunge into third-world communism, but it has spurred the American conservative spirit, a process that has only been possible because Obama won in 2008. This is why conservative Americans should embrace the Robert W. Whitaker voting strategy in future elections.
Whitaker, a populist conservative who spent some time in the Reagan administration, wrote an interesting treatise on American politics in 1976 titled A Plague on Both Your Houses. The book attacked the liberal elites of both the Republican and Democrat Parties, but it was his critique of the common policy of "choosing the lesser of two evils" that should have garnered the most attention.
Whitaker wrote: "Today's populist uprising is against both new establishment excesses in the name of social progress and its fake opposition which pushes military-industrial interests in the name of free enterprise and patriotism. We hold to those ideals. It is to professional liberals and professional conservatives who use those ideals that populism says, u2018A plague on both your houses!' Beyond the populist reaction lies a new age. Our failures today are due largely to the fact that out policies are geared to fatten the establishments rather than to solve our problems."
He later outlined the limited political "choices" that "populist" Americans had in the Democrats and Republicans. The two had essentially morphed into a statist coalition using populist rhetoric to enhance their own power and economic muscle. Thus, he argued Americans should not choose "the lesser of two evils," but a true third-party candidate or the greater statist or "establishment" candidate of the bunch. That way, things would reach a boiling point more quickly and the de-legitimization of the political process could be corrected by Americans who truly believed in populist ideals. Professional politicians be damned.
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Of course, that was 1976, but his statements still ring true in 2009. Americans have been duped to think that "R" or "D" makes a difference, and that if only (insert your favorite Republican or Democrat here) had won, things would be better. The real battle has become statism vs. liberty. Obama is, hopefully, the tipping point. He is the culmination of 100 years of progressive infiltration of the American political system, but Americans need to avoid the trap being set by the major parties, particularly the Republicans.
Returning Republicans to power in Congress in 1995 and to the executive mansion in 2001 resulted in fourteen years of higher debt, greater spending, a housing bubble, suppression of civil liberties, and out-of-control government. We should have expected no less. They are and have been part of the establishment and most are statists. And Leftists have been disappointed in Obama's resistance to their socialist agenda, regardless of how bad the Right has portrayed it. He has pushed the envelope, to be sure, but as the selection of Van Jones as the "Green Czar" illustrated, the Left wants much more. Obama has betrayed Leftists on the war in Afghanistan, the dismissal of Jones, and the elimination of a "public option" from health care "reform." Leftists vote Democrat and continually get left in the cold.
Voters who wish to see "change" should remember this lesson. The only real choices are third-party candidates at the federal level, or if none exists, vote for the person you don't want to win or simply don't vote. This will again hasten the de-legitimization of the political process. The forty-five percent of the total voting population who choose not to vote in federal elections are making a solid statement against the federal leviathan. At the same time, Americans should be concentrating their efforts at the state and local level. As I pointed out in Decentralization for Socialists and Why the Tenth Amendment? the state offers the only hedge against cultural, religious, or economic centralization and ultimate annihilation. The states are not perfect but definitely closer to the location of power, and that is precisely what both the Left and Right want: greater control over the direction of the government.
So, in future elections, if a third-party candidate does not suit your political philosophy, vote for the individual who least resembles your ideology and then bolster your power by selecting state and local candidates who will push a state rights message. The Right should be privately cheering Obama's election. He is quickly bringing down the Democrat Party. Just don't let the Republicans swoop in and take credit. They need to go, too. Vote Obama and bring down the federal leviathan!
September 17, 2009
