Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Why You Should Vote for Mavericks


Before You start to throw rotten tomatoes at me for for suggesting you vote a certain way, I need you to consider history. 


Let me lay a foundation for this blunt statement without condition. Let us look at the last four effective presidents. 
Presidents were only considered effective when some of their actions were not in line with their party platform. Let's start from the most recent. 

Let us skip bush, as history has not judged his actions yet and go straight to Clinton. Despite being an ethically controversial character, by many he is looked to as one of the most effective president. What is his most praiseworthy action? He cut the deficit. Wait, what? I thought he was a democrat? That's right the most important Clintonian accomplishment was not the establishment of a liberal program that will increase the deficit. He followed the conservative principle of responsible spending. Maybe Clinton is an anomaly, lets move on to the next president that the people love.


Ronald Wilson Reagan. A man of great communication skills, arose in a Republican party at a time when the republican platform was incredibly hawkish. In fact when talking about the Carter administration the Republican platform was crystal clear:
"Despite clear danger signals indicating that Soviet nuclear power would overtake that of the United States by the early 1980s, threatening the survival of the United States and making possible, for the first time in post-war history, political coercion and defeat, the Administration reduced the size and capability of our nuclear forces."(http://tinyurl.com/ygwo92x)
Yet why do we remember Ronald Reagan for? Let me give you a hint: it was not increasing our nuclear arms. He did what many consider a very "dovish" move and he negotiated with the enemy. While on the surface he had harsh rhetoric for the Soviet Union, his real strategy were behind the closed doors of negotiation. What we praise him for is the very thing that the Republican party stood against, and yet there is mutual agreement that the United States is better off because of him.


Now before you ready your rotten tomatoes at what I am about to say, please remember that I am talking about effective presidents and not in anyway a reference to the moral character of the person. The next president on my list is Richard Millhouse Nixon. What can we possibly have to thank Nixon for? Well pretty much everything you own. The computer your reading this blog on, your possibly fruit labeled phone, and pretty much every piece of electronic equipment in your life are brought to you courtesy of Richard Nixon. There are plenty of things to hate him for, but if it wasn't for his efforts with China, we would not have recognized them as a country and we would right now be paying $2000 for union made laptops. What was the republican party platform's opinion about China about at the time?
"5. We are opposed to the recognition of Red China. We oppose its admission into the United Nations. We steadfastly support free China."(http://tinyurl.com/ykrapbm)
Are you serious? The party of the man who did the most to build US-China relations did not even want to recognize the country. Let's move on shall we?

The next effective president in history would probably be Dwight Eisenhower. Ike did many things as far as pushing the party platform, but he also did somethings that were completely irrelevant to the platform. Nowhere in the republican platform did it mention increasing the civil rights of African Americans or Expanding the highway system, in fact some would argue that the party opposed it at the time, yet we remember Ike for those actions.

What I am saying is a president is only as good as he is willing to snub his nose at the party. Now for reasons why Republican Presidents tend to be that type.

Republicans have spines: The only democrat I know who was able to snub his nose at his party was Bill Clinton. All the other Democratic presidents, no offense to the office, were more or less wusses who want to please everyone.

Republicans have a smaller party: This simply means that they have less people to please and are more willing to reach out because of that.

Republican special interest groups fight for Americans (as well as themselves) . The big one that pops into mind is the NRA. Sure they are pushed by gun corporations but there is a benefit to gun ownership to the average american. Another post for another day. However, when you look at the Democrat special interest groups, aka unions you realize that you do not benefit from buying union made products. When voting, you are essentially choosing between the lesser of two evil lobbies, and on balance the Republican lobbies have selfless goals compared to the Democrat lobbies. Regardless of your opinion on abortion, you and I both know that no one will make money by outlawing abortions.

To conclude Vote Right. (You know exactly what that means.)

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