Mr. King and Mrs. King.
Posted on 07/17/2008 4:51:17 AM PDT by KLFuchs
I'm a lifelong Republican - a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole's presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp's Empower America.
This November, I'm voting for Barack Obama.
When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that's antithetical to almost everything I believe in?
The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies - this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.
Taxes, economic policy and health care reform matter, of course. But how we extract ourselves from the bloody boondoggle in Iraq, how we avoid getting into a war with Iran and how we preserve our individual rights while dealing with real foreign threats - these are of greater importance.
John McCain would continue the Bush administration's commitment to interventionism and constitutional overreach. Obama promises a humbler engagement with our allies, while promising retaliation against any enemy who dares attack us. That's what conservatism used to mean - and it's what George W. Bush promised as a candidate.
Plus, when it comes to domestic issues, I don't take Obama at his word. That may sound cynical. But the fact that he says just about all the wrong things on domestic issues doesn't bother me as much as it once would have. After all, the Republicans said all the right things - fiscal responsibility, spending restraint - and it didn't mean a thing. It is a sad commentary on American politics today, but it's taken as a given that politicians, all of them, must pander, obfuscate and prevaricate.
Besides, I suspect Obama is more free-market friendly than he lets on. He taught at the University of Chicago, a hotbed of right-of-center thought. His economic advisers, notably Austan Goolsbee, recognize that ordinary citizens stand to gain more from open markets than from government meddling. That's got to rub off.
When it comes to health care, I am hoping Obama quietly recognizes that a crusade against pharmaceutical companies would result in the opposite of any intended effect. And in any event, McCain's plans in this area are deeply problematic, too. Take drug reimportation. McCain (like Obama) says he's perfectly comfortable with this ill-conceived scheme, which would drive research and development dollars away from the next generation of miracle cures.
But overall, based on his embrace of centrist advisers and policies, it seems likely that Obama will turn out to be in the mold of John Kennedy - who was fond of noting that "a rising tide lifts all boats." Over the last few decades, economic growth has made Americans at every income level better off. For all his borderline pessimistic rhetoric, Obama knows this. And I believe he is savvy enough to realize that the real threat to middle-class families and the poor - an economic undertow that drags everyone down - cannot be counteracted by an activist government.
Or maybe not. But here's the thing: Even if my hopes on domestic policy are dashed and Obama reveals himself as an unreconstructed, dyed-in-the-wool, big-government liberal, I'm still voting for him.
These past eight years, we have spent over a trillion dollars on foreign soil - and lost countless lives - and done what I consider irreparable damage to our Constitution.
If economic damage from well-intentioned but misbegotten Obama economic schemes is the ransom we must pay him to clean up this foreign policy mess, then so be it. It's not nearly as costly as enduring four more years of what we suffered the last eight years.
Too many Americans are clueless.
That aged dinosauer Warner wants to re-establish the national 55 MPH speed limit as if to say, "There, that'll fix it."
Hunter has tired being a mere closet wanker.
This guy is apparently a lifelong moron.
Mr. King and Mrs. King.
“The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies - this is the difference between venial and mortal sins. “
The person never was a “conservative”.
This is just another confused liberal who THOUGHT he was a “conservative”.!
If you believe this tripe I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
“It’s not nearly as costly as enduring four more years of what we suffered the last eight years.”
This guy doesn’t know from suffering.
Just wait.
Loss of 2A rights could be irreparable because as you point out it is the reset mechanism.
You are otherwise correct. No other part of the Constitution can be irreversibly damaged as long as The People retain the means and the will to reclaim their rights.
What concerns me more is the damage being done to citizens by socialist indoctrination experts in the public schools and MSM who inculcate the mistaken idea that the state should supersede the individual.
I fear that we may have already gone too far down that road.
“I suspect Obama is more free-market friendly than he lets on”
So you think everything Obama says in public is just a lie and you have the true insight into Obama’s inner thoughts.
“when it comes to domestic issues, I don't take Obama at his word.”
You think Obama is a liar and that is what you want in a president.
“the fact that he says just about all the wrong things on domestic issues doesn't bother me”
You don't care about the issues or the future of our country, you are just an opportunist who will support anyone.
“I believe he is savvy enough to realize that the real threat to middle-class families and the poor - an economic undertow that drags everyone down - cannot be counteracted by an activist government.”
Everything in Obama’s background, his voting record and his speeches say he wants to create an huge, leftist, activist bureaucracy.
"Even if my hopes on domestic policy are dashed and Obama reveals himself as an unreconstructed, dyed-in-the-wool, big-government liberal, I'm still voting for him."
You have no principles but you like to call yourself a conservative because you think it gives you credibility.
Looks to me like a shallow and unprincipled man with a hollow core. Someone who believes in nothing. He took a paycheck from Republicans when GOP stock was high but now wants a paycheck from the other side because he thinks their stocks rising. My bet would be that he made a pretty penny penning this load of crap.
The left complained about civil liberties being eroded under the FISA rules and the Patriot Act, yet the same complainers see no problem in convincing us to reduce our freedoms in what we drive, what we eat, and how we run our furnaces and air conditioners in our homes.....OUR HOMES!!
How about the Audacity of Personal Freedom? Does that count?
What an idiot.
So, where's he going to go, once Obama pivots? Well, there's always Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney to vote for.
Doofus. This guy plays the liberal game, "I'm more moral than you are".
You got that right about the Conservatives being individualistic. I was watching a group wrangling over how best to accomplish a task and pointed out to a friend that if a dozen Conservatives were in a room to perform a task, they would want to do it thirteen different ways.
She grinned at me and said "Yes, isn't it wonderful!"
Sir you are a deluded ash hole. Now please shut down your pc so you can get to the after lunch bingo game at the home you live in.
Venial vs. mortal, eh? So I wonder how this lousy jerk weighs the cost in blood of 50 million dead in this country from "the right to an abortion", a policy that Obama wholeheartedly and enthusiastically embraces? If the blood of 50 million innocents isn't a mortal sin, I don't know what is. This idiot is so concerned about the Iraq war and the casualties of that, yet says nothing about his candidate's support of policies that have led to a holocaust in this country that dwarfs what the Nazis did.
So this scumbucket either supports Obamination's views on unrestricted abortion, or he is deliberately turning a blind eye to it in order to rationalize his "support" of a Marxist radical pro-death demagogue. Either way, it seems obvious where the "venial" vs. "mortal" argument comes down.
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