President: Bob Barr. A few reasons. First, the likelihood of my vote changing anything are practically zero, but the likelihood of my feeling like a total dick if I vote for either McCain or Obama is 100 percent, so I might as well vote for Barr.
McCain has forfeited my vote by his support of McCain-Feingold, which shows (as if nothing else did) that he has contempt for the Constitution of the United States and cannot therefore support and defend it. He was the architect of the Senate compromise by which Janice Brown was barred from the Supreme Court and the Democrats continued to get their veto power over judicial appointments. He has no principles and never had any. His recent attacks against Obama's socialism are good, but too little, too late--and completely contradicted by his own claim that he would order the Treasury Department to simply buy up all bad mortgages and renegotiate them at the diminished value, thereby absorbing tens of thousands of dollars per house into the tax burden of the United States. And nothing needs to be said about his appalling choice of a running mate.
Obama is obviously extremely far left, with contempt for private property rights and economic freedom and a genuine ideological desire to steal things from people who earn them and give those things to people who do not. He is much more committed to genuine socialism than any Democrat in living memory. His views on foreign policy are ignorant in the extreme. Nor do I buy his alleged secularism. Both candidates use religion when it suits them, and of the two, Obama's exploitation of religion is, I think, actually more offensive than McCain's. Yet at the same time, I suspect that Obama is more sincere in his religious convictions than people have been willing to acknowledge, and that his election would be a very bad sign of a rising religious left. And nothing needs to be said about his appalling choice of a running mate.
Of these two, clearly Obama is the better candidate. But that is only a testimony to how depressingly inadequate are the major party nominees. Neither even approaches being qualified for the presidency. Neither believes in individual liberty. Both believe in government waking us up in the morning, watching over us during the day, and tucking us in to bed at night. Both would take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. Both would nominate deplorable judges (Obama out of ideological commitment; McCain out of plain ignorance). Neither would fix the Social Security crisis. Both would give government control over our choices in health care. Both would violate, routinely and as a matter of policy, the first ten amendments to the Constitution (well, maybe not the third....)
And, of course, Ron Paul is an embarrassing lunatic. So, Barr's the man.
On to the California ballot initiatives....
Prop 1A: A billion dollar boondoggle to tax our grandchildren for a rail line that they don't even know where to locate. No.
Prop 2: I have a very hard time with this one. On one hand, there is no question that the treatment of these animals is cruel and inhumane, particularly the treatment of chickens. No farmer dealing with these animals on a one-to-one basis would ever treat these animals this way; it is the product of the mass factory farm system that people are embarrassed even to acknowledge exists. It's disgraceful. But, on the other hand, I don't believe animals have rights in the strict sense. So the argument would have to be, do we consider the treatment of these animals to be so indecent that we will agree by a kind of "contract" simply to prohibit it--the way we might all agree on other standards of decency (say, when a homeowner's association agrees not to allow certain colors of paint on houses)? I might buy this argument, except that we're talking about coercively raising other people's food bills. And as strongly as I believe the treatment of these animals to be indecent, I don't think I have the right to force my views of decency on someone else by forcing them to pay more for food. Policies that raise the price of food are almost always a bad idea. So, with reluctance, I would suggest a No vote. Standards of decency are best enforced through moral persuasion. But I can certainly understand the other view.
Prop 3: Another bond act to tax our children while the state goes bankrupt. No.
Prop 4: Now, think about this a minute. The kind of girl who is not going to be beaten up by her parents for getting pregnant is already likely to tell her folks that she's getting an abortion. The kind of girl who has to be forced to tell her parents is the kind of girl who is likely to have good reason not to tell them--that is, who is going to be beaten or hurt in some way. This is really too delicate a subject to be handled with something as clumsy as a statewide law. No.
Prop. 5: Rehabilitation instead of incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses. The only people who could be against this are the Drug Warriors, and they have a couple reasons. First, they want to use the drug laws as a way to prosecute people they just don't like, or that they want to get on other charges, but can't find the evidence. I disapprove of that. Second, they're committed to fighting this immoral, unconstitutional, wasteful and unconscionable war on drugs. I disapprove. Vote Yes.
Prop. 6: Mandatory set-asides of funding at a time when California is going bankrupt? I hate pork as much as the next guy, but I don't think repeatedly taking matters into the voters' hands is the solution. No.
Prop 7: Wrap up your little protectionist price-raising scheme in environmental propaganda. This initiative would not just force companies to use certain types of "clean" (usually inefficient) energy, thereby raising energy prices, it would also require them to get that energy from production sites located in California, even when energy might be more cheaply (and even more cleanly) produced outside of the state. If this were just about clean energy, why require that the energy be produced in California? No, it's a boondoggle to benefit specific lobbying groups (this is called "creating jobs"). No.
Prop. 8: No. Someone else getting married doesn't hurt me and is none of my business. No.
Prop. 9: This appears to duplicate existing law. But that existing law is fine. So I don't see why not. Yes, I suppose.
Prop. 10: Yay! Bonds! Tax our grandchildren some more! No!
Prop. 11: YES! God damn Gerrymandering politicians. And the CTA's against it, so vote yes.
Prop. 12: More bonds. Hey, we don't have to pay them, we can just tax future generations. What have they ever done for us? No.
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