A Republic, If You Can Keep It

Meh. I’m not happy at all with the choices facing us in the election tomorrow. John McCain has a quite a nasty statist streak in him, but Barack Obama is a statist through and through.

Originally I was planning on voting Libertarian this year, but Bob Barr’s record isn’t much better than McCain’s, and Virginia is apparently a swing State this year. Now, to be perfectly honest, this might not bother me so much if we were going into this with a clear, Republican majority in Congress on the other side of tomorrow. Yea, Obama could still make quite a mess with just one branch, but partisan gridlock would have limited the damage he could do.

With the Democrats expected to have a substantial majority in Congress, however, there’s only one conclusion to draw.

Obama must be stopped. Even if it means voting for John McGunShowLoophole.

The Senator has lots of good intentions, to be sure. And, hell, I’d even go so far as saying some of his ideas sound nice in theory. The problem is, though, they won’t work on paper; namely the Constitution. Even if all his plans could somehow work in practice, creating more government powers not delegated by the Constitution only serves to undermine the rule of law.

And regardless of whether the results might feel good in the short term, the expansion of government power which Obama seeks will ultimately lead to tyranny. Whether or not he’s the one to crush liberty once and for all, his plans would set the stage for the final act.

Then of course there’s the fact his party has even grander plans than he does. Plans which, if passed in Congress, he would almost certainly sign into law..

Again, McCain was never my first choice, but at the very least he would slow the growth of the Federal Leviathan. And on the bright side, McCain might be able to appoint a few appellate judges and a Supreme Court Justice or two who could push back. Even if it’s only a few inches, it would give us some chance to regroup.