Friday, February 01, 2008

McCain vs. Freedom

What timing! At precisely the moment Republican voters need to be reminded of why John McCain is not an acceptable Presidential candidate, the reminding comes from McCain himself.

John McCain, sounding more like John Edwards than even Hillary or Obama have, attacked Mitt Romney -- for being a businessman!

The highlights from the debate:

I think that we’ve got to return to the principle that you don’t lend money that can’t pay it back. I think that there’s some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished.

****

HOOK: I want to start with Senator McCain.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the importance of leadership and management experience. What makes you more qualified than Mitt Romney, a successful CEO and businessman, to manage our economy?

MCCAIN: Because I know how to lead. I know how to lead.

I led the largest squadron in the United States Navy. And I did it out of patriotism, not for profit.

****

COOPER: I’m going to ask you all for follow-ups on this, but, Senator McCain, I just want to give you an opportunity to follow up on that. Is Governor Romney ready to be a military commander?

MCCAIN: Oh, I’m sure that, as I say, he’s a fine man. And I think he managed companies, and he bought, and he sold, and sometimes people lost their jobs. That’s the nature of that business.

Thank you, Senator. Neither Lenin nor Marx could have put their hatred of capitalists so succinctly.

This is one of those moments when I have to pause and count to 10. My loathing for John McCain has never been greater. In pitting patriotism against profit, McCain manages to insult both businessmen and patriots. He insults businessmen by implying the pursuit of profit is not noble. He insults patriots by implying they agree with him and are fighting and dying for socialism or something of the sort.

(The irony is that John McCain was part of the Keating Five, an exploit motivated by neither patriotism nor profit, but sheer corruption. Money gained by force or fraud is not profit, but stolen goods. Unlike Mitt Romney, John McCain has been on the receiving end of stolen goods.)

We have to remember that McCain is a "national greatness" conservative, like the people at the Weekly Standard. He believes in big, intrusive government, not to protect rights, but to guide the people in virtue. And virtue, in McCain's twisted mind, is bound up with collectivism and statism, with the individual sacrificing for the state.

So we have a man who, with Russ Feingold, used the First Amendment to the Constitution to wipe his ass. Rights, you see, are meaningless next to our noble government overseeing our virtue. The freedom of speech must give way to government control of speech in the name of virtue.

So we have a man who has opposed tax cuts and leads the way for enchaining our economy to fight global warming.

So we have a man who has advocated national service for young people and the need to "sacrifice for something greater than self-interest." (And because McCain is such a caring sort of chap, he'll make sure that every American has the opportunity to sacrifice to the state again and again and again.)

Really, once you throw out the concept of individual rights for state intervention -- for our own good, of course, always for our own good -- then anything goes. There is no sphere of life, no aspect of the economy, that McCain could not find justification to seize and control by the government.

John McCain would do more harm to America than either Clinton or Obama. Republicans in Congress would stifle the Democrat President every step of the way, but would stifle themselves under a McCain presidency. And Democrats in Congress would only complain about a President McCain that he has not gone far enough in destroying our freedoms.

It's up to Republican primary voters to stop this monster. If they fail, he will be the next President of the United States, because no Democrat can stop him in November.

5 comments:

Galileo Blogs said...

Thank you for your insight on McCain. You captured the underlying essence of him that is revealed in his various actions and words. Your concept of a "national greatness" conservative captures him well. He is a scary, anti-individual rights, anti-business statist.

What makes him so dangerous is that he is a Republican. As a Republican, he will not be opposed by his own party, and will get away with murder.

Look at the horrific policies brought on by Republicans Richard Nixon and earlier by Herbert Hoover (the true father of the New Deal). Statist Republicans can sometimes be even more deadly than statist Democrats.

Moreover, in addition to doing great harm with their policies (e.g., Nixon's wage-price controls, Hoover's tariffs and proto-New Deal programs that worsened the Great Depression), they end up doing even greater long-term harm by confusing those who would defend capitalism. For example, Hoover is remembered to this day as the President whose capitalist (!) policies caused the Great Depression, when the opposite is true. It was his anti-capitalist, New Deal policies that worsened the Depression and paved the way for that great Democratic statist, FDR, to assume even greater power. For his part, Nixon made wage-price controls and environmentalism acceptable among Republicans. Bush enacted tariffs, expanded welfare, and helped lead us onto the anti-oil, global warming bandwagon.

McCain is the type who would continue in this ignominious Hoover-Nixon-Bush Republican tradition. He has made that clear with his views on global warming, campaign finance and Wall Street.

I say, let the Democrats be the statists and be identified as statists. Let the Republicans be the party in opposition. That is the role Republicans do best, as when they reined in Bill Clinton and forced him to adopt better policies on welfare, for instance.

Republicans these days are only semi-principled when they are not in power.

Rick "Doc" MacDonald said...

I think John McCain will get the nomination. I think, however, in the general election, conservative thinking people (as opposed to religiously thinking conservatives) will not vote for him. I think they'll take their chances that the Supreme Court will remain as it is for another 4 years, and if it doesn't will fight the battle that truly needs to be fought then. If the majority Justices ever decide to put the actual Constitution back into practice and ignore the principle of Staris Decisis as a secondary principle to strict interpretation, we have a chance. Without that, there is no chance of having again what the founding fathers provided for us.

Myrhaf said...

I still think that come November Republicans will vote Republican. I know from introspection that I am most motivated to vote Republican when I am outraged at the dirty tricks the Democrats pull in October. I want to punish the Democrats for their injustice when they use their allies in the MSM to smear a Republican's character. Just watch, Rick -- I am certain it will happen again, because the Democrats will panic as they always do and go dirty. They will end up sending hordes of Republicans to the voting booths to vote for a John McCain that they don't much like, but will think by then that he has to be better than the Democrat.

Myrhaf said...

Galileo, thanks for the historical perspective. I should point out that "national greatness" conservatives is not my concept, but theirs. It originated in the Weekly Standard, I believe. They floated the phrase a few times, but it only serves to anger Republicans who want smaller government, so I think they've set it aside. The philosophy is still there, whether you call it national greatness, neoconservatism, Teddy Roosevelt Republicanism, Bull Moose, or -- if you want to get inflammatory -- fascism.

Joubert said...

I'm in two minds about Mack. I just did a post based on your comment on my blog:

"Republicans in Congress show some spine against a Democrat president, but don't fight a big government Republican president."