I've heard a lot of talk lately about socialism. Ignore, if you will, the ridiculousness of a campaign in which everyone in the VP's state receives a cut of oil revenues. A windfall oil tax that is good enough for hockey moms but not good enough for soccer moms. Next ignore the fact that when he ran in 2000 the presidential candidate said that once people reached a certain level they should pay a little more. For a moment lets just talk about how John McCain's economic policies will lead us straight to socialism.
It, and by it I mean the US, began like this. . .
"So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop."
This was the beginning. This was George Washington speaking of operating in good faith with other nations. Many have looked to Washington's farewell address to the nation as an endorsement of isolationism but to me the focus is on the statement "with perfect good faith."
This emphasis on "good faith" was the practicality of Washington. This was not a warning to never involve ourselves in the affairs of other nations, rather it was an emphasis on the necessity of being honest with ourselves, and our nation as to what were the true intentions of all parties involved. This practicality, now more than ever in our nation's history, needs to be applied not just our concerns but to the concerns of all nations. This warning needs to be heeded in all matters, military and economic.
Socialism has traditionally taken root in nations that have a rigid separation between the ruling and the ruled coupled with a high concentration of wealth in the upper classes. The risk of socialist control also goes that much higher in nations with no respect for property rights. Oh I hear what people tell me, look at the wild successes that we have in this country, anyone can make it. To a degree that is true, but not everyone can make it and therein lies the tear in the illusion that blinds so many. A child born into poverty in the US has little to no chance of getting out of the lower classes. This wasn't always the case, indeed it is the result of something that was hinted at by President Eisenhower, but more on that in a little bit.
I hear John McCain saying that the people that Obama wants to give a tax cut to those who don't pay any taxes. Alright John I'll give you that but how the heck did we get here? Many of those people work. Why aren't they making enough that they have to pay for roads? Why aren't they making enough that they have to pay for schools? How did we get to the point that all the money is so concentrated into the hands of so few that they now have to pay most of the taxes because they have most of the money? When did we become old Europe with all the gold in the hands of the lords and the people working the fields and weaving the clothes have nothing where the lords can use their wealth to buy favor with the king and his court?
So you are in a country where much of the wealth is concentrated at the top. The schools are falling down. You are recovering from a war that devastated your nation, bleeding the coffers dry. You look around at people who have no healthcare. People are getting sick and dying with little to no care. You are faced with a new and radical threat from the east. Fanatics are intent on crushing the great democracies and replacing them. This was Europe at the end of WWII and it is us now, the question is how will we proceed?
When wealth becomes heavily stratified at the top of a civilization at the expense of vast swaths of underutilized and undervalued people, particularly in democratic societies, methods have traditionally been taken to prevent democratic principles from being over run by self interested exploitation seeking to transform itself into aristocracies. The entanglement of our society within its current scenario will determine the severity of the response. John McCain's policies will follow principles that have long concentrated wealth in the hands of the few. This will lead to a further endangerment of our way of life. How will this happen? How will John McCain take more money from Americans so that the only option left for our people will be to vote for socialistic reforms or face a future as slaves?
John McCain wants to cut taxes on the wealthiest citizens in America. This will pull money from schools, from medicare, from social security and social services just when Americans are hurting most. John McCain plans to cut pentagon spending to pay for his tax cuts without a plan for ending any wars. John McCain has said that he will not renegotiate trade agreements because it would upset other nations and he called acting on actionable, clear intelligence to capture Osama Bin Laden "reckless." This is where the issue of, "perfect good faith" comes into play.
John McCain appears to be under certain illusions. Let us first look at the matter of Osama Bin Laden. It is perfectly legal to go after Osama Bin Laden if one has actionable intelligence, even in foreign nations. It is a principle called hot pursuit. Hot pursuit allows nations to cross the borders of other nations to capture and detain imminent threats if the nations in which that threat exists are unwilling or unable to act. Make no mistake if Pakistan were to refuse to act on such intelligence it would be because it was in their best interest. If we were to have such information it would be in our best interest to go in and take out Osama Bin Laden. All efforts should be made to secure good faith relations but it is deceptive and immoral, not only to our troops, our nation, but also to other nations to not acknowledge when those points diverge. Had such clear and honest assessment of our national interest been observed we would not have made many of the same choices over the last eight years for we would have viewed clearly the illusions of the past and the challenges of the future.
The next area in which John McCain has illusions is in dealing with the economy. Our nations, and I do mean nations because this is not strictly an American problem, face another imminent threat as a result of the nearly thirty years of deregulation that has been championed by John McCain. This deregulation has marched hand in hand with socialism, not the socialism of Europe but the socialism produced by the deregulated market that funneled tax payer money into the hands of the wealthy, while making it more and more difficult for the entrepreneur to compete and while do nothing to help the poor people who actually helped build these now corporate titans. As in the case of Eisenhower's warning against the military industrial complex, we are compelled to be a guarded and enlightened society, to protect against the encroachment upon our freedoms and our democracy so that freedom and security can coexist. This flies in the face of the decimation of our civil liberties by the current president and the man who has voted with him 90% of the time. It flies in the face of our values to protect the property and profits of the wealthy while allowing them to exploit our citizens, and the citizens of other nations for what is wealth for the few if it comes at the expense of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the many? I am an old-fashioned, pig-headed, ass when it comes to property rights and I believe that the most important property that we have is our lives and our freedom to determine a better future for our children.
It is at this point in our nation that we must exercise "perfect good faith" to recognize the conflict of members of our own society who are not in fact operating in our nation's best interest. We must do this and not just to protect against a stratification of wealth that will lead to socialism. We must also exercise logical and concerted restraint, with other free and just nations, against those forces within and without that would seek to abandon our people and the people of other free nations. We must guard our liberty and our nation against all threats and for that we need someone who will not walk into the oval office with closed eyes. We need someone who will not be either blissfully unaware or willfully dismissive of the interests of our great nation and the interests of a free and better world for the generations to come. We cannot afford another four years of blindness. We need Barack Obama for the security and liberty of the entirety of the American people and the integrity of the great nation of America.