Decision 2008: Winnowing the field of candidates - or, who I WON’T be voting for
Posted on October 4, 2007 in Politics by DM
The start of 4th Quarter 2007 marks the beginning of the final countdown to the Iowa Caucuses. Although I have been trying to cultivate a sort of ‘bemused detachment’ from presidential politics for the past several months, it’s time to begin thinking about who I might support.The only thing I know for certain right now is who I won’t support, and that’s Hillary Clinton.
A co-worker recently asked me, “Would you vote for Hillary because she’s a woman?” And she seemed genuinely surprised when I said, “Absolutely not.” (That criteria may be good enough for Christie Vilsack, but it’s not good enough for me.)
There is nothing - NOT ONE THING - about Clinton’s policies or political/social agenda that I find the least bit inspiring, reasonable, or even half-way appealing. In fact, I find most of it downright frightening.
The only good thing that one can say about Clinton’s domestic agenda is that it’s crystal-clear where she stands. In a nutshell, Clinton supports:
Redistribution of wealth - taking from the rich and giving to the poor, to bring those who earn and work hard down to the economic level of those who don’t because, you know, we should all be EQUAL despite the quality of our personal efforts. Unfortunately, while this idea might equalize things monetarily, it would also smother the desire and the motivation for any of us to go to work everyday, to become educated, to innovate, to work hard at advancing ourselves.
Commandeering of corporate profits - “”The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy…” Excuse me - did you say, you want to TAKE those profits? As in, you want the government to step in, snatch a pile of cash out from under oil company investors (that would be ME, through my 401[k], thank you), and take it away from them to finance a competing product? Let me be clear: competing product, good. Government seizing private corporate profits, bad.
Mandatory personal health insurance - Everyone would be required to buy it, whether they want to spend their money on it or not. Insurance companies would be required to sell it to anyone who applies. (How’s that going to keep the cost down?) Big businesses would be required to pay part of their employees’ costs. And - of course, those who earn and work would have to pay for those who don’t.
And just for good measure, let’s throw in this almost-proposal for compensation limits for corporate CEO’s. Clinton has said she would “open up CEO pay to greater public scrutiny,” according to the Associated Press (Manchester School of Technology speech, 5/29/07). Did you ever think you’d see the day when an American politician even skirted around the notion of establishing limits on how much people are allowed to earn? Sure, it’s easy to pick on corporate CEO’s because a few of them have been unscrupulous bastards. But, rather than simply suggesting we punish the unscrupulous bastards, Clinton proposes government review of the private policies established by private corporations related to how they privately compensate their leaders. The next step would be… anyone? … anyone?? Try regulation. This not a leap of logic - if you think Clinton would be content to simply ’scrutinze’ without then attempting to mandate change, you didn’t read #2 and #3 above.
This quick review of the proposals Clinton herself has publicly made doesn’t even touch her fluctuating positions on international issues like terrorism and immigration, her lackluster Senate career, or the many unsavory precedents she established during her scandal- and failure-laden tenure as First Lady.
In her rhetoric, Clinton benignly calls her vision for America “shared responsibility and shared prosperity.” But her consistent use of the phrase “…take things away from you for the common good” shows her vision is anything but benign. Her agenda is socialism, pure and simple: government control and government involvement in every aspect of Americans’ lives. Government ownership cannot be far behind.
That is a vision for America I know I cannot support.
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