Irresponsible? Perhaps... Undecided? Definately.

[Solwyn]

WARNING: Foul (political) language ahead--

So I still haven't voted yet. Granted, I live in Texas so I might as well save myself the gas money because there's no way a non-republican (if he were white and a baptist minister) is going to be elected by this state. But here's my view right now:

On a pure political basis - Obama scares me, because I'm libertarian-minded. The amount of government control he wants to enact (including "spreading the wealth" policies) leads me to believe that he is more of a socialist than an idealist. Also, he still refuses to furnish his birth certificate, which leads me to surmise that he doesn't have one, and it's a constitutional requirement to run for office (one of the very very few things stipulated in our constitution). Also, I don't know anything about Biden, other than that he's kind of the opposite of Obama when it comes to policy moderation, so maybe that's a good thing.

My issues are-
I make less than 250k a year... but someday I might make more than that. I don't plan on starting a business any time in the near future because I don't have enough capital or connection... but someday I plan to. My company's insurance plan would cost me more than half my income just to insure my family, so we're currently uninsured... but I might work for a company in which everything is included someday.

From the view of policy and personality, McCain is fucking crazy. I don't mean like tree-hugging and a little creepy Kucinich crazy, I'm talking voice-cracking dancing a jig while Rome burns Perot crazy. And I'm not saying that he's given any indication of that, because a majority of what he's done is just sit around and deflect like a decent politician. I'm saying he chose the running mate from hell, and that make me doubt he could ever have been sane in the first place. Now everyone's saying he did it because he's moderate and she's hardcore conservative. But I genuinely fear that she will be in the same place that George W. Bush is now, and her policies are many times more aggressive than his. Abstinence-only sex education and "no child left behind" obviously didn't work, but that doesn't matter because they're the right things to believe in, and no one (and no amount of statistical analysis) will ever disprove that belief.

My issues are - I have always believed in a smaller government, and the republican party has always been the herald of that philosophy... except for the past eight years. I don't believe in having a multinational empire, but I do believe in a strong standing military presence on the world scene. Granted, I believe that military should be checking out more than just the middle east right now (a buddy of mine is getting deployed to Georgia with a ridiculously small force, for example), but I think we need it.

What do you guys think? I know everyone keeps selling that Obama is Mr. Change, but is he? If we want less government spending, I'm fairly sure he's promising the same as his predecessor... but now we'll actually have to pay taxes for it (which is gonna suck but will bring inflation under control). Is McCain the level-headed alternative that we should be looking to, because our current crisis is an issue of not enough of the middle ground, or do we need the same level of extremism in the opposite social policy direction?

[Brugdor]

Sounds like Barr (or at least his party) would be the closest thing to your political leanings.

The bottom line is that neither McCain or Obama has talked about cutting spending. Where the money goes will shift with them but spending will actually get worse. So if you are a fiscal conservative you are up a creek unless you want to vote third party.

[Celest]

Then again, who is the last person to truely cut spending after saying they would 'cut spending'.

Wasnt Bush. In some ways, Clinton, not really. HW Bush.. nope.. Reagan.. definately not.

[Solwyn]

Then again, who is the last person to truely cut spending after saying they would 'cut spending'.

Wasnt Bush. In some ways, Clinton, not really. HW Bush.. nope.. Reagan.. definately not.

I'd prefer that costs were trimmed in any case... but my issue is more that you can't spend more money without increasing taxes, or else our printed money (which has no fixed absolute value) becomes worthless, because its "guaranteed" value is based on the government's budget.

Good time to buy precious metals, bad time to be involved in any industry (except for marketing apparently, we're killing right now).

[Celest]

Yeah, Im with you.. Im strongly against deficit spending for many reasons.. one of the biggest because it devaluse our currency as well as leads to inflation.

[Brugdor]

I'd prefer that costs were trimmed in any case... but my issue is more that you can't spend more money without increasing taxes, or else our printed money (which has no fixed absolute value) becomes worthless, because its "guaranteed" value is based on the government's budget.

While that's true I feel I should point out that the government's revenue actually went up during the Bush administration. So it's entirely possible to lower taxes and make more money. So really it just all comes down to the out of control spending which both parties seem to be unwilling to move away from.

[Celest]

Here is the problem with W Bush and Reagan.

While both increased the amount of money coming in. Both also significantly increased(re much more then the increase in revanue) the amount of spending being done by the government.

The reason why I said 'in some ways' with Clinton is that he was the first President in a while to actually generate a surplus on the yearly budge as opposed to doing significant amounts of deficit spending.

The problem is the 'Neo-Con' movement which takes the worst parts of Liberalism and combines it with the worst parts of of conservatism(eg Big Government spending and the government getting into personal matters).

That is why I found it hilarious to see those GOP who supported the bailout claim it was 'Capitalism' yet condemn a simular effort targeted towards mortage holders.

Both are socialism though what the Bailout is doing is much closer to communism and both, in the respect of financial situations, are bad.

[Solwyn]

Well I'll admit revenue did increase, but as any business person (shudder) will tell you, revenue is irrelevant without a cost-benefit analysis to calculate profit. If we tripled our income but quadrupled our spending, we're ultimately worse off than we started, and that's what we're seeing right now. In my opinion the issue is more that the world is seeing a constantly authoritarian-shifting government structure, and not a single empire or nation in the world has become LESS authoritarian before it was overthrown.

It's not fair to compare the modern world with the world before, but I'm willing to bet that my belief structure about individual liberty died during the civil war and it won't come back. Maybe that makes me the dinosaur, but most of the conservatives these days would call me a hippie.

There's no Ben Franklins left.