On Friday I was driving home from a little practice bowling, getting ready for the season's start next week when I heard on the radio that McCain was going to pick Palin for his VP. I watched the announcement on TV at home. My voting options have been narrowed down. Right now it looks like I'll be voting for Obama or no one.
From what I could discern, Ms. Palin is a statist, collectivist, altruist. She is firmly against a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. She is for concepts like the common good and said so in her acceptance speech.
Sure, Ms.Palin has some positive aspects: she is a non-intellectual, which in today's climate is an asset, she is a soccer mom, PTA and NRA member, fisherlady and generally a doer and go getter. But in an interview video on CNBC with Maria Bartiromo, Palin said that the people of Alaska own all the oil and lease it to oil companies. It's true that if the state owns something, it has the right of use and disposal. But the question is should the state own it? Alaska's state constitution calls for the public ownership of natural resources like oil and gas so that's not her doing but she seems quite comfortable with the idea of public ownership of property.
I'll wait until after the GOP convention to make a final decision. But as I watched the speech and the Bartiromo interview I didn't hear her mention mandatory public service. Then again, I didn't hear her mention individual rights either.
4 comments:
Ms. Palin is a statist, collectivist, altruist. She is firmly against a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. She is for concepts like the common good and said so in her acceptance speech.
Not to disrespect your choice, but the only difference between her and Obama in that list is the abortion topic. At least she walks the walk on that one, deciding to bring to term a baby known to have Down Syndrome.
Kevin:
Philosophically she's not much different than Obama. That and the abortion issue is why I can't see myself voting for her and McCain.
There is no doubt that she is a lady who sticks to her values and I admire that based on what I've seen so far. But I think her values are typical conservative values. She's obviously good at attacking wasteful spending and promises to do the same nationally. This is the same line we heard during the Reagan years. She does not understand that wasteful spending is not the problem, spending as such is. I want to see what else she says on the stump and at the convention. But I don't have my hopes up for anything positive.
Mike,
This is certainly a productive argument to have, and I hope Gov. Palin gets hammered from a Randian perspective.
At this point though I'm disagreeing with you on two things: One, she's definitely committed to the "smaller government" thing in rhetoric, and to a certain extent, in action as well.
Two, your comparing her to Obama and finding her to be an inferior offering...well, c'mon. That was just hyperbole right?
I'll freely confess my bias. I was going to stay home until McCain selected her. Now I'm all jazzed and I got Palin fever.
MKFreeberg:
"I'll freely confess my bias. I was going to stay home until McCain selected her. Now I'm all jazzed and I got Palin fever."
I recommend taking two aspirins. In this election there is going to be a lot of disagreement even among objectivists. I don't mind that at all. It's like trying to decide between two poisons which is the slowest acting. To show the difficulty, I said I would wait till after the conventions to decide. Now I'm waiting till after the debates. I was thinking that if I voted for McCain, I would vote Democrat for everything else, or if Obama, then Repub for all others. Right now my thinking is that McCain/Palin is the slower acting poison but more deadly, and Obama/Biden is faster acting but not quite as deadly. It goes without saying of course, I could be massively wrong on this. That's my thinking in part. But I have another thought that McCain will win in a landslide. A lot of people want another Reagan and I think they see a Reagan type in Palin. Staying tuned.
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