Political Post
Oct. 4, 2004
I haven't posted in a while. I wanted to wait until I had time to fully detail why, having voted for Republicans almost exclusive since embarking on my political life, I am not voting for George W. Bush this election. Instead, I am voting explicitly against him. In fact, I am so determined to limit his power, that all my votes at the federal level will be targeted at making Bush work as hard as possible to implement his agenda. Where have I changed?
In 1996, I was an idealistic high school student. I believed, as I do now, that a government which continually runs a deficit and ever spiralling debt will eventuaully be forced to pay that debt. As a young person, I realized that paying for this debt would probably fall to me and my generation. With this thought, I campaigned for Bob Dole, who ran largely on a balanced budget platform. Eventually, Clinton and the GOP Congress did balance the budget. We even had a surplus by the time he left office. Now, under G. W. Bush, we have the largest deficit in history. How does this uphold what I believed were Republican values? How are reckless tax cuts, new federal departments, and new Medicare benefits representative of the party of smaller, more efficient, balanced government?
Since high school, I've taken several economics and political science classes. From these, I've learned to see the value of free trade, provided it is fair. Trade with China has opened that country to new ideas and the values of Western democracies. The liberalization of markets leads to democracy and human rights. A rising tide lifts all boats. These were common Republican talking points throughout the cold war and afterwards. Bush, however, has abandoned free trade in favor of agricultural protectionism. He has increased sugar and cotton subsidies. He imposed new steel tariffs. He provided no-bid contracts to Halliburton, Cheney's former company. None of these acts support free trade. Instead, they support cronyism, fractured markets, support for losing business practices, and corporate welfare. Like the rising deficit, I don't believe any of these are good for the long term health of our economy.
Finally, there is the war in Iraq. I opposed the war because I didn't believe Bush's claims about Saddam's supposed WMDs or ties to Al Qaeda. Trying to fight a war against an abstract concept like terror or drugs always seems to lead to random invasions. Instead, we should have concentrated on Afghanistan, a country which harbored the very people who killed 3000 of our countrymen. Where would Afghanistan be today if we had comitted those 180,000 troops to an Afghan reconstruction instead of Iraq? Certainly not in the hands of opium lords as it is today. In the Republican party I joined, war was only used as a last resort, and then with a clear objective, overwhelming force, and an exit plan. Vietnam was supposed to be a Democrat (LBJ) mistake.
I have changed. I'm not an economic libertarian any more. My understanding of many issues is much more complex as a result of my college education. However, I believe that Bush has betrayed and changed the Republican party more than I have changed away from it. Therefore, I am voting against the person I believe has caused this change. He has changed both the party for which I voted and the country in which I am a citizen for the worse. I don't even care who he is running against, although I like Kerry well enough that I'm not going to be dreading four years of him as president.
I'd like to go on, but because I've been preparing for my upcoming qualifying exam, I haven't had time to write more. I came across an essay which makes a lot of the same points I do here, plus more which I would if I had the time.
Some highlights:
"Theodore Roosevelt, insisted that, 'To announce that there should be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people.'"
...
"Ten years ago, the Republican Party regained control of Congress with the Contract with America, which included a balanced-budget amendment to restore fiscal responsibility. But today, thanks to tax cuts and massively increased military spending, the Bush administration has transformed, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a ten-year projected surplus of $5.6 trillion to a deficit of $4.4 trillion: a turnaround of $10 trillion in roughly 32 months."
...