Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Liberty & Union

I worked the phones for the Michigan Republican Party in the 2012 election cycle, believing then as I still do to-day that Governor Romney was the better man to be president of these United States. I have not been similarly involved in the 2014 cycle for two reasons: First, I simply do not have the time; almost all the time I could have dedicated to politics is not spent on the church campus involved in myriad ministries & projects. Second, I have been unable to summon much if any enthusiasm for the re-election of Governor Rick Snyder & the election of former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land to the Senate. Mr. Snyder is the better candidate for the state top executive, & I shall vote for his re-election, but I oppose his financially unsustainable expansion of Medicaid in collaboration with the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare); he will get my vote in part because his Democratic* challenger, former Congressman Mark Schauer, voted for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) whilst serving his single term in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the Senate race, I have been disappointed by Secretary Land's refusal to debate the Democratic nominee to the open seat, Representative Gary Peters, who also voted for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). This was Michigan's best chance in twenty years to elect a Republican senator & Land has fumbled & stumbled time & again.

Is it wrong to vote against these men principally because they voted to strip me of the health insurance I liked & that President Obama repeatedly promised I could keep (the "Lie of the Year" for 2013, remember)? I think not. After all, Mr. Obama has said that his policies are on the ballot this year, even though he is not. Therefore, in this president's own view, a vote for Messers. Schauer & Peters is a vote to cancel my health insurance despite repeated promises not to do so; a vote for unprecedented deficits (much larger than the deficits Candidate Obama called "unpatriotic" in '08); a vote to negotiate in bad faith as an excuse to withdraw all American troops from Iraq; a vote to allow Russia to dictate the course of events in Eastern Europe & China to grow ever more hegemonic in the Pacific; a vote to codify in international agreements Iran's "right" to enrichment of uranium & flaunt their Nonproliferation Treaty obligations; a vote to rewrite acts of Congress by executive fiat; a vote to allocate federal revenues to fund abortion, despite the continued prohibition of such funding by the U.S. Code; a vote to make illegal non-recess recess appointments to various executive posts; a vote to wield the I.R.S. as a weapon against political opponents; & a vote for a thousand thousand other usurpations, abuses, & banal acts of tyranny.

This is my last chance to vote against Mr. Obama's parade of horrors & I shall do so with a certain amount of relish.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of Election Day
Green Day, "American Idiot" from American Idiot (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: As ever, a song's selection as the R.B.D.S.O.T.D. should not be construed as agreement with/endorsement of the political philosophy articulated in that song, i.e., the opinions expressed therein do not necessarily reflect those of the management.

*Most of my fellow Republicans would have written "Democrat challenger," refusing to use the proper adjective "Democratic." I have always found that ungrammatical tick irksome.

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