| Tuesday, October 14, 2008 |
07:12 - O well
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I'm more or less resigned to an Obama presidency, in case anyone's wondering. I'm not particularly happy about it, especially as a small business owner who's likely to be directly in his sights tax-wise, but I don't think it'll be the end of the world. In fact, I suspect it may well be a good thing to a certain convoluted extent, with necessary caveats:
The worst thing about the coming Democratic victory (if that's what we're about to witness) is not that the Democrats will take over power. In a democracy control switches from party to party fairly regularly. It isn't even that the Democrats seem committed to a hard leftist agenda. We've been free from significant leftist experimentation for decades, but one must expect it from time to time.
The worst thing is that the left-wing Dems are poised to take control at a time of apparent economic crisis, or something approaching it. History suggests that under these circumstances, the party that gains control keeps it for longer than normal.
In other words, I'm sure it will be a whole lot less exhausting for the next four (?) years if the people around me and with whom I tend to associate don't feel it necessary to complain about politics as a first resort, the way they have since 2000. Not only will political discourse likely become a whole lot less angry and obstructionist and absolutist at all public levels, I may personally find myself a whole lot happier. And if the economy goes south (more?) following an Obama inauguration or other bad stuff happens, then I won't be throwing any parties or rubbing anyone's noses in anything (not only would it be bad form, it would put the lie to any theory I've held that such things are generally beyond the purview of whatever poor sap is in the big chair at the time anyway); but I also will take a certain wry satisfaction in knowing that at least it will be a chastening force against those people who expected a Second Coming. And for that matter, if things do get ridiculously better and we have another decade like the 90s that enjoyed giddy levels of growth and security more as an accident of historical rhythms than as a result of any particular policies, well, I'll celebrate just like everyone else and enjoy it while it lasts and keep quiet about the politics of it, since (as we all discovered in the 1996 election) there's nothing more pitiful than some embittered outsider trying to convince someone that he's not as happy as he thinks he is.
But all that said, the primary reason for my vote against Obama will not be for economic reasons, or military, or anything else policy-related, though those are all factors. It's simply that as a matter of personal principle, I cannot allow myself to have any part of letting people like these have their way.
It may be a futile effort, but I won't regret it, whatever the outcome.
UPDATE: Oh, and I just gotta say, whatever else Obama might or might not be, at least he's spared us the indignity of going through another episode of an effete intellectual leftist candidate desperately trying to win flyover-country hearts and minds by ineptly throwing footballs around or affecting an accent, like Kerry and Hillary. Claims of dishonesty might well be leveled here and there, but at least the guy is comfortable in his own shoes, which is more than I can say for McCain these days.
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Brian Tiemann
