http://globalcapital.blogspot.com

lharrington, it is BECAUSE no true conservatives are in this race that things are going to get a whole lot worse. Socialism is the most destructive force in the history of the world, impoverishing nations and butchering millions. It constantly pits "haves" against "have-nots" in ways that inevitably end up bloody. It leads one class of people (the have-nots) to believe that they have a RIGHT to something that doesn't belong to them and that they didn't earn by the sweat of their own brow. It leads the other class (the haves) to believe that they have no obligation to help those less fortunate. That obligation is moral, not legal. Both are wrong and both are destructive.

Those who tout socialism's (supposed) virtues have rarely had to live under its tyranny, and tend to think this error was in the "WHO" implemented it, rather than in the "WRONG" principles it codifies. They quickly accept its tantalizing promises without studying enough of its disastrous history to know that those promises are ALWAYS broken. It is incredibly seductive, which magnifies that it is so incredibly destructive.

I notice that you suggest (#2)that the candidates probably won't carry out their campaign rhetoric. For one thing, what does that say about their character that they would LIE for the sole sake of obtaining power?

I believed the same teaser deception in Jan 2000 when George W Bush criticized the Republican Party for its traditional stand on limited government. I voted for him anyway, thinking that the other Republicans would either hold him in check on the budget or that he would somehow be converted to the virtues of limited government written into Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. I was wrong. I didn't vote for him again. I realized what a waste of my vote it would be to vote for a man who wasn't a traditional conservative, and who wouldn't therefore support my conservative principles.

Don't make the mistake that I did by voting for someone who makes campaign promises and DOES keep them in a very destructive way.

This fall, I will likely vote for Dr. Chuck Baldwin, Presidential Candidate of the Constitution Party, even though I'm not a member of that party either. He stands for correct principles and a return to the Constitution.

It seems absurd that both Obama and McCain are committed to energy alternatives that are -- at best -- decades (15-20 years)away and unproven in practice, while opposing solutions that have worked before, claiming that they will take too long (3-10 years) to implement. Are we going to bet our entire civilization on unproven methods that will take 2-3 times as long just to test?

I remember when Pres. Carter took office and promised vast sums of money to alternative energy research. He poured monumental amounts of money and research into it. Nothing came of it! Great cause, poor results! Free markets work much better because they allocate capital more efficiently and over time, the best alternatives generally rise to the top as consumers make choice that provide the most benefit at the lowest cost. Politicians can't do that!

The whole philosophy of taking the gains earned by one person and forcibly redistributing them through the coercive power of government to another, regardless of the nobility of the cause, is still a violation of 2 of the 10 Commandments. Whether I steal using my hands from a neighbor's house, or by cowering behind my vote and a shameless politician, it is the same. The founders understood this:

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If `Thou shalt not covet' and `Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free." -- John Adams (A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1787)

We had better prepare, because things are about to get a whole lot more painful. Very painful indeed, because if the desk in the Oval Office has a plaque that reads Obama or McCain on it, it won't matter much which.