My take on the election

If you’d asked me yesterday how the election would turn out I would have told you that Kerry/Edwards were going to send W back to Crawford. Honestly, I didn’t even expect it to be close. It turns out I was wrong. In fact I was very wrong. Bush received more votes than any presidential candidate in history, soundly defeating the Kerry/Edwards ticket. The result of the presidential race combined with the gains Republicans made in congress shows me that Americans overwhelmingly prefer the current administration and the Republican platform.

Why I think Bush won

I believe Bush, and to a larger extent the Republican Party, scored big wins in this election because the majority of Americans agree with them on three issues: taxes, moral issues, and less government.

Taxes

For whatever reasons it seems that candidates these days try to differentiate themselves by trying to use issues and values held by the majority of American’s to paint the other guy as ‘not one of us’. I guess they do it because they don’t have any ideas to run on and it’s easier to scare people into voting for you than it is to win them over with your ideas. Take the tax issue for example. Nobody I know likes taxes. Nobody. I don’t think we’ll ever see a politician get elected by running on a platform of higher taxes for everyone. The Republican Party has long been successful at getting people to vote by promising lower taxes. The Republican Party has been so successful at this that popular opinion today is that the Democratic Party is the party of tax and spend liberals. While I personally think the argument could be made that neither party has shown any interest in reducing government spending the ‘tax and spend liberals’ label is so firmly attached to the Democrats that the point isn’t worth discussing.

Conservative government

I think the same can be said for voters that say they prefer a smaller less meddling government. My own opinion is that, while there are of course fringes of liberal democrats that would prefer a socialist or communist flavor of government where the government takes care of everybody, I really believe the vast majority of American’s view government as a necessary evil that should be closely and skeptically monitored. A distrust of centralized government, corruption, abuse of power, and our acute awareness of the delicate balance that exists between the governed and government is, in my opinion, as American as apple pie. It is one of the founding principles of our country. Believing that most voters share the same natural distrust of government, I think the democrats have been somewhat unfairly labeled as the party of big government. But again, like with the tax issue, I think it is completely pointless to try and mount an argument here. That label is now, and will likely continue to be, firmly attached to democrats.

Voters that wanted lower taxes and less government voted for Bush.

Morality

One of the more interesting results of this election is the number of voters that identified morality as their primary motivation for voting who voted for Bush. While the ‘tax and spend’ and ‘big government’ labels have been around for years the ‘morality’ label is relatively new. I can’t trace the events that led to this association between morality and the Republican Party but I have a feeling it comes from Bill Clinton’s affair, and subsequent lying and impeachment. Why Clinton and not Nixon, I don’t know and it doesn’t really even matter.

Voters believe Bush is more inline with their values and beliefs.

Why I didn’t want Bush to win

I think, or at least I’d like to believe, that if you voted for Bush you voted for him for one of the reasons I discussed earlier. I’d like to go on believing that nobody voted for Bush because they like the war in Iraq or because they believe the war in Iraq is a good strategy to make America safer. But as much as I’d like to believe this I know that people did vote for Bush because they endorse his foreign policy. And if you’re one of those people then you already know what I’m about to say. This is for everyone else that voted for Bush not because they approve of the war in Iraq, but for some (any) other reason.

Neo-conservatism

I don’t dislike Bush. He honestly seems like a good guy who’s trying to do what he believes in and trying to do what he thinks is right for America. I agree with him on some issues and disagree with him on others. Rather than go down the list I’ll share my chief disagreement with him ‘ his foreign policy.

Just in case anybody reading this isn’t already aware of this ‘ the Bush administration’s foreign policy is called neo-conservatism. Neo-conservatives believe, in a nutshell, that the US should, being the only remaining superpower, seize on this opportunity in time to promote our values throughout the world in an effort to make the world a safer more controlled place. The primary belief is that so called ‘failed nations’ (sovereign countries that pose a threat to US security) should be pressured to adopt American ideals and democracy (colonized) immediately, directly and with force if necessary. That only when the world is free of nations, whose cultural, religious, or ideological beliefs differ enough from our to constitute a threat, will the US be safe from harm.

I personally disagree with just about everything neoconservatives believe.

I disagree with a foreign policy based on fear. I think weak men make decisions out of fear.

I disagree with our right to forcibly (attempt) to challenge a nation’s right of sovereignty. I think the right of self-destiny is not a right reserved exclusively for America. The idea itself is completely contrary to my understanding of freedom and democracy.

I disagree that we know better than the citizens of another country what is best for them.

This idea is new to our nation, but it isn’t a new idea in the world. Lots of nations at the height of their power have tried it. The Greek, Roman, British, and German Empires all come immediately to mind. Where are they today’

My opinion is that this policy is completely immoral, impractical, and will not only be ineffective and fighting terrorism but will actually help terrorist organizations recruit members and find sympathetic allies.

By applying our power and arrogance in equal measure to fight terrorism in this way we’re only empowering their argument against us. Obviously we need to do something to keep people from killing Americans ‘ everybody understands that. I’m not running for office but it seems to me that covert military operations, improved intelligence gathering, and spending more time understanding the regional effects of our foreign policy decisions (such as our blind support of Israel and corrupt governments in the Middle East) will do far more to win over the minds of our enemy. It is after all, their minds we should be focused on because you can’t win an ideological war by fighting a conventional war.

I think it’s important to understand that this is a war of ideologies and that the neo-conservative agenda of colonization doesn’t apply to this type of unconventional enemy. That’s why I think it’s doomed to fail and I think it’s important that everyone that supports Bush understands the foreign policy he/she is directly or indirectly advocating. So take a few minutes and peruse a couple of these neo-conservative think-tank websites and see how much or how little you actually agree with. I hope reading about their agendas is an eye-opener for most folks. I’d like to think I’m not the only one that thinks this isn’t the right approach.

I just had to get that off of my chest. No more political rants from me.

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