Eight years past, I found myself impassioned for the idea of a smaller less intrusive government. This was seemingly echoed in the rhetoric of George Bush's overall platform in 2000. His critique of President Clinton's involvement in nation building in Serbia and Bosnia resonated with my desire for America to focus on America. The cries for fiscal conservatism and prudent government spending looked like the responsible course of action. His apparent straight forward language, although rustic, appeared genuine; as if honesty could find it's long lost way to the steps of the white house. He appeared to cherish the constitution and planned to uphold the true ideals of democracy. Naturally this registered Republican voted in his very first election for the man from Texas. After the dust had settled over the long and arduous electoral battle, he reign victorious, and the rest is history. We stayed out of world conflicts and wisely invested our money on our own failing schools, roads and bridges. We respected the constitution and reduced the wasteful spending on the federal level then reveled in the financial benefits that made us all prosperous. Well, it would have been nice.
Now, I sit in mystified bewilderment. What happened to all the promises and talking points? Today the Executive Branch enjoys power never before extended to the branch. They have made precedents for disregarding the constitution and civil liberties of American citizens. They've condoned torture, lied to their own party members to engage in a foolish war, and wildly spent taxpayer money on thinly veiled imperialist endeavors that would make some mild dictators cringe. This doesn't even begin to mention the doubling of the national debt since Clinton, and the recent nationalizing of banks complete with billions of dollars for them to horde as they please. This president has done more to increase the size, spending, and debt of this government than any executive in the recent past, without leaving us with reasonable positive results. We are much closer to becoming a socialist state because of this "conservative" president. In short everything they have done is almost the exact opposite of what they promised.
Vote for us, were conservatives! ( muffled laughter erupts)
So the question then becomes who abandoned whom. I find that my ideas on the free market and small government have not changed. I still oppose expanding our international empire while ignoring our own failing infrastructure to be reprehensible. I think nationalizing banks is not only a temporary band-aid but also an example of the incompetence of this administration and it's party. So, if this system operated under any semblance of the laws of reason and logic, I would still be a conservative, but Bush wouldn't be. I feel like Don Quixote the seeming lunatic in a story full of real ones. Speaking of that...
The good Senator from Arizona has adopted all of those wonderful hollow promises once uttered by the current President. He must have found them in a waste bin somewhere on Pennsylvania Avenue. Commitments of reduced government spending plume like billowing clouds of promise from the Senators aged lips. Staunch orations of smaller government and hunting down of pork barrels, fills every last sound bite. Yet the simple truth is they will continue the standard operating procedures of the last occupant of the oval office. This serves to color me somewhat skeptical. Not withstanding the emphatic rejection that Sen. McCain is a carbon copy of George Bush, his current line of policy proposals serve to only perpetuate the unreasonable abandon of reality that holds Washington like vice. So, should I vote for McCain? Well, Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, uh well uh you can't fool me again.
