Some trust in elephants and donkeys…
Sep 25th 2008Wallabynerd alert
Yay politics. It still won’t be a usual topic 
Not that I’ve had *any* ‘usual topics’ lately… haven’t had a lot of free time for writing more stuff outside of work.
Anyway. I used to have a fairly clear idea of who I was going to vote for – not out of any love for him, or even agreement with what (seem to be) his principles. Actually, I kind of suspect him of being a disaster waiting to happen, one way or another. It’s simply that the other guy would almost certainly be a catastrophe, and that trumps mere “disaster”.
Lately, though, Mr Disaster is sounding more and more like Mr Catastrophe. The real problem is that they both want to manage. Manage everything, actually. Do they talk about wanting to expand their power (“we’re going to increase oversight of the …” – “oversight” means “power over”) because they want more power? because they think that’s really what’s needed? or because people will vote for someone they think can “lead”?
Some of the rhetoric is simply absurd – “John McCain will lead the effort to develop advanced transportation technologies and alternative fuels to promote energy independence”. No, that sounds more like “Tom Swift for President”. (I’d vote for Swift!)
“Barack Obama and Joe Biden will work with governors and educators to ensure that state assessments measure these [higher-order thinking skills].” Has either of them ever taught? or shown evidence of “higher-order thinking skills”?
The rest is just more and more government involvement. In schools, in hospitals, in energy technology, in farming, in research, in communications – the government has not done well managing ANY of these things in the past. Yet… they both want government to do more and more.
How about a candidate who wants something really different? one who wants the government to do less and less? Well, there’s Bob Barr, but frankly the rate at which he suggests change is a little on the scary side… conservatism recognizes that even changes for the better can wind up making things worse.
Some trust in elephants and donkeys… Psalm 20:7.