Libertarians
I’ve undergone a political transformation over the past 2 years from Conservative to Libertarian. This means my views on a few issues have changed during that time:
1. Republicans and Democrats are not THAT different.
2. George Bush is NOT the man of principle I had hoped.
3. I will not be voting for GW Bush in this election.
There is one issue that I’d thought, and still do think, is the most important issue facing our country over the next 5-10 years(maybe longer) and that’s the “war on terror.” I put it in quotes because I don’t believe it’s just a war on terror but a war on militant Islam as well. It’s a war of cultures. The West versus Islam. Truthfully, there is no room for compromise here. We are at a war w/ a culture that would rather kill us than deal with us.
Now, GW Bush has done a lot of things I didn’t particularly care for:
1. The horrible prescription drug plan.
2. Growth of the government, even after accounting for the war, has been great than it was during the Clinton years.
3. Constantly trying to compromise w/ the Democrats. They routinely badmouth him and call him all sorts of names (see Kennedy, Ted) but he still plays nice with them.
Those are just off the top of my head. But, in spite of those things, I still felt that Bush’s stand on the “war on terror” was worth setting those issues aside and voting for him again.
Until Fallujah. There was an uprising there. And we needed to go in and pound that city. So we sent in the Marines and started doing that. Now, I understand the desire to avoid killing women and children but if the enemy is hiding behind them, so be it. So we are hitting them pretty hard and all of a sudden we come up with a brilliant plan to let one of Saddam’s former generals take charge of an Iraqi security force and take care of things. And we withdraw the Marines.
That convinced me that the politicians, and not the military, are running this war. I believed and, still do, in the Iraq war. But there is no use in fighting it if the moron politicians won’t let us.
That was the last straw. I will be voting Libertarian or Constitution party this year. I’m going to do some research into their candidates because I really know very little about them.
It’s just a darn shame. It’s nice to have a professed Christian in the White House and who really seems to mean it. But if he can’t stand by the principles he professed during the 2000 campaign, then he isn’t the man of principle I thought. And, therefore, won’t be getting my vote.
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