Overall, I’m rooting for the non-Republicans in this Congressional election. GOP control of the government has given us an explosion of federal spending, a gutting of the Constitutional restraints on executive powers to deprive people of their liberty, a growing nanny state, and a reckless foreign policy. True, Democrats could very well have given us all of those things, too, but having one political branch of government under the control of one party and the other political branch under the control of the other party at least means that they’ll fight over such matters, that hard questions will be posed and debated, and that we won’t simply be railroaded along the road to serfdom toward which the Bush administration and the GOP congress are driving us.
I don’t like the idea that the Democrats, if elected, will probably claim a vindication of their own positive agenda. That’s where the Foley scandal has some positive political value: if the Democrats win, it may be because their beating the drums about Foley and the House GOP leadership drives down a core element of the GOP vote, rather than shifting voters from the Republican column to the Democratic column. It will be harder for them to claim a “mandate” for, say, making the current health care system even more dysfunctional by moving toward a “single payer” system, thus depriving the poor Canadians of anyplace to get decent care for life-threatening or painful illnesses.
This isn’t very logical. What’s more likely is that the GOP will rubberstamp even more intrusion, most of it will be sponsored by the Dems.
True, we will abandon Iraq and screw over the Iraqis. But that isn’t very libertarian, is it?
How would “abandon Iraq” — in other words, withdraw from a foreign invasion — not be considered libertarian?
Traditionally, we’ve done much better under bipartisan leadership. I find it sad that political bickering is our best chance of curtailing spending and regulation, but there it is.
Since the electoral system is rigged against third parties, wouldn’t the next best thing to do is to have libertarian candidates run in both the democrat and republican party?
It’s not be considered libertarian the same way that handing Jews to SS guards is not considered libertarian. Or the same way that handing an escaped slave to his master is not considered libertarian.
How sick that I need to explain this…the “libertarian movement” has gone from a bloody joke to a bloody crime.
I am hopeful that the Democrats will win. Divided government has the potential to have the two parties blocking each other’s programs, and both deserve blocking.
Better yet, the Democrats might well try impeaching Bush and Cheney (Cheney first, PLEASE!) and hence be too busy to inflict their agenda on us.
Anon: re “abandoning” Iraq — ending an invasion is not even vaguely equivalent to “handing Jews to SS guards.” A large number of Iraqis would just as soon Americans leave. And it’s very hard to see why you think prolonging the occupation is libertarian. The occupation certainly isn’t libertarian.
I think if the Democrats win and do something stupid like try to impeach Bush or Cheney, or try to pull out all the troops in Iraq, it will be a disaster for them in 2008. And that’s the last thing Hillary wants.
I wish that I had some reason to be confident that the Democrats wouldn’t be worse on almost every front, or that Bush would veto their initiatives when they are…but I don’t.
I often hear pundits prolaim what message the voters will send to politicians by defeating incumbents, but the message is usually interpreted to be that the people want more of the worst policies.
It would be nice if we could just will the outcome to have the effect we’d like it to…but we can’t.
It’s possible that a Democratic congressional majority would slow down the damage for the next two years, but I’m afraid it will lead to a much worse long term future.
The Democrats certainly don’t deserve to win but the Republicans certainly deserve to lose.
Pete T is right on target.
But a democrat victory would — I think — mean divided government, and hence neither party would be able to inflict its agenda on us. Gridlock politics, bring it on!
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