Frustration high as elections near
On Saturday of last week, I turned on the TV to catch up on old sit-coms. To my dismay, it seemed like every channel I turned to had some election coverage on. Now, I love politics. I’ve even spent a large portion of my life being a political junkie, but sometimes one can have too much of politics. There is only one word to accurately describe my feelings towards the election this year – frustration. I am utterly frustrated that there are only a few good candidates out there and that even the best of them can’t get air time against the heavy-weights of the Washington establishment. It’s easy to watch the news and see all the candidates make their ludicrous promises and think, "Does any of this really matter"? Thinking about it rationally, only one of these politicians will become our President next year, and by that time, they’ll have forgotten their promises anyway. It doesn’t seem to matter. That’s exactly how I felt Saturday. While political news is surely better than round the clock Anna Nicole Smith coverage or Natalee Holloway or Jamie Lynn Spears coverage for that matter, it’s hard to see the good in the politicians when almost all of them are so bad. It’s true. I believe most all of these politicians are bad. Every time you turn on a candidate speech in a battleground state they are always talking about this new government program or all the money they will throw at this failing sector of the government. For instance, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are detailing their economic stimulus package that they plan to bring up this year in the Senate. Hillary Clinton plans on a 70 billion dollar package; Barack Obama’s costs 75 billion. I’m all for an economic stimulus based on rebates, tax cuts or less government regulation. However, Obamas and Clinton’s plan has the main goal of increasing unemployment benefits. In essence, their plan to get people back to work is to pay people more not to work. I’m not sure I understand the logic. What we must realize is that every single penny that the government spends to expand or to redistribute wealth costs us more freedom in terms of private property. Whenever the government gets larger, every American’s personal freedom shrinks. This may not always be a bad thing. I support the government building more jails when need be, and taking away the freedoms of murderers, rapists, child abusers and the like. But I don’t like the idea of government taking our freedom, stealing our money and bossing us around because some bureaucrat in Washington believes they can run our lives better than we can. The hot topic of this election seems to be nationalized health care. Democrats, and even some Republicans, are hopping on the ideological bandwagon that it should be the government taking care of your health, and making your life and death decisions instead of you. There are definitely many flaws with the current health care establishment in America, but if it was really examined, I am confident these flaws can be reconciled with deregulation and free-market capitalism. There is just one underlining issue in this election. The singular issue is freedom. Every single political debate in the nation revolves around freedom. In terms of the war in Iraq, the U.S. is paying billions of dollars of a week to keep up the fighting. Which is more important, saving U.S. citizens billions of dollars which provides for their economic freedom or giving the Iraqis a real shot at having true freedom? Even in the decades-old issue of abortion, which freedom matters more, a living woman’s freedom to choose or an unborn baby’s freedom to live? Obviously, there is no easy answer in these issues where two different kinds of freedom compete. But freedom is and must remain the main issue. The next four years will shape our nation in freedom issues: the Iraq War, the Iranian conflict, the Patriot Act, nationalized health care, taxes, hate crime laws (really thought crime laws), government spending and every single social issue imaginable. It is up to us whether we would like to continue the American experiment in personal liberty or if we’d like to relegate our freedom to government authority. This year the choice is ours, and that is why even when politics frustrates us we must realize that freedom truly matters.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Jan 25 2008. Filed under Opinion.
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