printHere’s an excerpt from my new WorldNetDaily.com column, “McMussolini”:
“McCain’s national greatness ‘conservatism’ sees the individual as a cog in the service of the collective. Contra McMussolini, the American Founders placed the individual before the collective, giving pride of place to individual liberties before duties. James Madison and the other founders attempted to forestall raw democracy by devising a republic, the hallmark of which was the preservation of individual liberty. The Bill of Rights places primacy on the rights of the individual. … The individual’s inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in McCain’s universe are little more than manifestations of a ‘me only’ self-interest, which McCain routinely maligns.”
You can read the complete column, “McMussolini,” on WND.
Yes, I agree. Socialism and collective responsibility has far out-competed any form of capitalism or market driven economy based on individual responsibility.
Palin is Magician misdirection, meant to cover up McCain’s intentions. Although Palin’s impressive I’m not waiting for McCain to die so she can save the country as some commentators are suggesting.
As a paleo-conservative and a registered Republican, I do believe that John McCain is more of a danger to our Republic than Barack Obama. Sarah Palin’s perfume does not mask McCain’s stench. [Great line.–IM] I can’t hold my nose tight enough to vote for him—I would need a HAZMAT suit.
BTW-From what I have seen thus far, I do like Sarah Palin, but she is not the one running for President.
Thank you for nailing the essence of the issue again. As to the question, “Which is the lesser evil”, I often wonder how much it really matters. It’s like two drunken pilots arguing over which way to steer a sinking ship.
Daily, the warnings of the Austrian economists are coming true, while the Plunge Protection Team frantically tries to cover up the evidence until after the election with historic, unprecedented actions. It isn’t working. Major financial institutions are failing, one after another, despite all attempts to save them. The extent and seriousness of the situation are effectively being covered up, the better to prevent people from withdrawing their 401K’s before they evaporate.
Neither side is allowed to talk about impending collapse, or contingency plans laid for when it happens. Ron Paul embarrassed them all by mentioning it, and now the subject is radioactive. The issue is bigger than anything they’re allowed to discuss. So the question of which is the lesser evil probably depends on whether you’d be happier under one mix of socialism and fascism or another when the entire population comes begging to the government to feed them. To me, it doesn’t matter.
Excellent. McCain’s several beliefs (immigration, war) have rightly given rise to skepticism about him. As your column points out, McCain is deserving of more than skepticism. His progressivism is not patchwork, reserved, or targeted – it is of a whole, all encompassing. A long time complaint against the Republicans has been they’re like the Democrats just less so. McCain is the de facto political/social leveler. The two parties have reached progressive parity.
I hope McCain does not personally hold to the fascist world view that may have been inferred from his RNC speech. I imagine he was referring to the sacrifice that is sometimes necessary to protect individual freedoms. My main concern with his speech is that it seemed to put more emphasis in our country’s greatness than in God’s.
We’ve heard a lot of talk from Obama about change in Washington and McCain has recently taken up that mantra, though he calls it reform.
As I watched the Presidential Candidate Forum on Public Service this evening, during which both McCain and Obama took turns lecturing the American People on their duty to serve their nation, (as I recall the government is the servant of the People, not the other way around–which just goes to show that our politicians think of themselves as our masters), I came to the inescapable conclusion that Joseph Farah is right. We ought not to vote for John McCain under any circumstance. I had already decided not to vote for him beforehand, but listening to John McCain speak at the forum definitely removed any lingering doubt.
Judy Woodruff asked McCain what he would have done on 9/11/2001 to keep the memory of that day, and the spirit and determination of the American People to serve and safeguard their nation, alive to this instant date. Apparently Sen. McCain has not only joined Sen. Obama in the “change” mantra, but he has adopted Obama’s call for a civilian national Praetorian Guard.
McCain said that he would have had the government create new organizations, such as a Neighborhood Watch organization, to patrol the nation and to guard nuclear facilities. Apparently Sen. McCain is unaware that such an organization already existed throughout the nation prior to 2001, and therefore needed no federal government creation . The organization, by the way, was coincidentally called Neighborhood Watch!
McCain went on to say that in those good old days of American unity he would have proposed legislation of service to country. Just what the form of that service would have been he did not say. One can only imagine. But the point is that he seems to think that the American People were so afraid post-9/11 and so united from that sense of fear that they were ripe to be “lead”(manipulated) into accepting a demand from the federal government in the form of legislation that they must serve the government.
McCain continued by explaining just what some of those organizations would be that he would have created, or rather have expanded, to counteract the terrorists and to keep America safe from future attack. He said he would have expanded AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps!
I am sure that we all would have slept so much better knowing that thousands more of our citizens were swelling the ranks of these organizations to secure us against further terrorist attack! But, when McCain went on with his next line his comment about expanding Americorps and the Peace Corps as the front line of our national war on terrorism the thought in my mind of just how foolish this man sounded was immediately replaced with dreadful thoughts. The thoughts evoked when a statist speaks.
McCain said that we need to also expand the military, this in the context of national service.
When McCain was asked in turn about what he thought the solutions were to assuage the feelings of the American People that the nation is headed in the wrong direction and what he felt were the Citizens’ obligations to the state, beyond paying their taxes, McCain again offered the solution: military expansion accomplished by inspiring the American People to face the challenges we face as a nation. What were those challenges? McCain mentioned Afghanistan and Georgia, but we can presumably add Iran and Iraq to that list, as well. So, the principal kind of “service” that McCain wants to inspire the People to volunteer for is military service, which will expand the military and allow McCain to continue U.S. military adventurism and intervention throughout the world.
In the alternative, I suppose that McCain would be just as satisfied if the People served in Neighborhood Watch, AmeriCorps, or the Peace Corps instead of the military. He may well reason that if the volunteers in these organizations can defeat the terrorists at home by patrolling the block or standing guard in front of nuclear power facilities that they are just as fit to be deployed across the world to take out the likes of the Iranians or Russian military.
McCain then waxed nostalgic about just what the federal government was able to accomplish back in 2001 when the American People were sufficiently pliable. He lauded the fact that the federal government was able to bring about the, “biggest reorganization of government”, and with it the greatest expansion of government power, made possible by the American Peoples’ unity at that time. McCain said that to bring about such change again the American People just need to be inspired again.
Just what was that “inspiration” McCain is talking about? I seem to remember that “inspiration” being fear, anger, and a sense of vulnerability. So, all that need happen for the People to once again be “inspired” to expand the military by serving (as fodder for U.S. aggression), thus enabling a President McCain to war against Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Russia, is for the American People to be made to feel angry, fearful, and vulnerable once again.
McCain went on to crow about the needed reform he had already, as the maverick he is I suppose, brought to Washington. What was that reform? McCain/ Feingold campaign finance reform, which legislation just happened to be an overt assault on political freedom of speech, which assault serves to give the advantage to incumbent politicians who are standing for re-election.
McCain’s idea of reform in Washington, then, is one of an expanded military and massive government reorganization (expanded government power), and protection and insulation for incumbent politicians, made possible by “inspiring” the People again through feelings of fear, anger, and a sense of vulnerability, to serve their government (masters) by flocking into military service.
Given what I have heard from John McCain’s mouth tonight, I call upon my fellow citizens to volunteer for the most important public service that you could possibly perform in defense of this nation. That public service is casting your vote! It is in withholding your vote from John McCain and Barak Obama this November. Neither one of them is deserving of our votes.
In fact, I call on you all to go one step more in your national service by running all incumbent politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, out of Washington by withholding your votes from them when they stand for re-election. That is the real change/reform we need!
When presented with the choice of two evils, do not choose an evil and thus enable it.
No argument about McCain. My argument is on freedom and Liberty — they are not the same even though often used synonymously. [Right about that, but for the true distinction, see “American Creed.”–IM]
Freedom is the lack of restrictions or burdens, something our unalienable rights bestow upon us,
Liberty is the selective lifting of restriction in order to keep things running smooth, avoid confusion, give each person a time and place to express themselves.
It is very active in our highway system with the stop and go lights and other restrictions on our free use of the highways. Speeding also come under this liberty.
We have those who promote vulgarity, immorality, pornography and the like as free speech. These are under the just restriction of Liberty. This restriction can be lifted for specific purposes but is generally in control.
The progressive pursuit of rights without liberty leads to confusion and strife. I have only seen this side of liberty recently but the more I look into it the more certain it becomes. In our church we commonly use liberty for a song or liberty for someone to bring the opening. That is the same as saying permission is given. If permission needs to be given then there must also be restrictions. When you think of it this all makes good, common sense.
When I began to look at how this works a lot of things under our Constitutional way of life begin to fall in place. We can put restrictions on quite a number of things without running afoul of our principles of freedom. No other system can make it work.
I’m not asking that you accept it but that you consider it. I don’t have any credentials to guarantee I can’t be wrong.
Whit
Talk is cheap … and Oh how sweet it is when it hits the mark. A great article because it is truth (and well said as usual).
Even if I vote for Baldwin, I feel I must root for an Obama victory. A victory by McCain will drive the Democrats more in the direction of the odious Lieberman and will drive the Republicans more in the direction of McCain…. BUT a victory by Obama will partially repudiate the Bush-Cheney-McMussolini-Lieberman pre-emptive interventionist foreign policy / no habeas corpus / torture.
$3.5 billion on AmeriCorps is a pittance compared to a war in Georgia and, while wasteful, may have some return on the $$. Obama’s raising of taxes will encounter more resistance from the voters than the Republican approach of borrowing and Federal Reserve counterfeiting where voters do not resist the growth of government as much. There is even a SMALL chance of the Republicans cleaning up their act if they spend some time wondering in the wilderness as Joseph Farah and others report. After Bush added 9 trillion of debt (4 operating and 5 from Fannie/Freddie), Obama has very limited opportunities to go on a spending spree. War – McCain style – tends to override financial arguments, however.