Election Day 2006

Election day. And a sorry one it is. None of the choices that the political machines have offered up to us are especially appealing. So, do I vote Republican, Democrat, third party, or sit this one out?

As tempting as it might be, I do not regard abstaining as a viable choice. It’s a cop out, and the more people that do sit on their duffs in front of the TV the more my vote is worth.

The third parties don’t appeal to me either. The Libertarian Party may as well be on Mars with their platform on border security and the threat posed by Islamists. The Constitutional Party includes some religious dogma in its platform that I dislike. The Greens are a bunch of socialist Euro-wannabes.

That leaves voting for a Democrat or a Republican. I can’t bring myself to vote for any Democrat and therefore strengthen them one iota. The steering wheel of the Democratic Party has been co-opted by left wing extremists who, should they have their way, would take us down the socio-political road that has lead Europe to socialism and which will eventually let it be accurately known as “Eurabia.”

Expanding on that last point, the Dems show no signs of taking the Islamist threat to Western Civilization seriously. Their calls for immediate withdrawal from Iraq show that. While Iraq may not have been the best choice for taking the fight to the Islamists, it’s the fight we have. The Dems would have us show weakness in the face of a ruthless, implacable enemy with zero respect for any way of life save their own. Furthermore, they would have us abandon those allies we do have in the Muslim world, leaving them to the mercy (hah!) of the Islamists much as anticommunists in South Vietnam were abandoned in Southeast Asia three decades ago.

To me this is the most important issue facing us. Do we cut and run or stand and fight? Do we ensure that our children and grandchildren have the chance to grow up enjoying freedom or grow up under religious despotism?

Sadly, while the Republicans have shown themselves willing to fight, they haven’t proven themselves all that fit to rule, either. On the Federal level they’ve had control over the executive and legislature for six years, and their failures include:

• Ballooning deficits resulting from a spending spree that any drunken sailor would envy.
• Utter failure to do anything significant about our reliance on foreign fossil fuels.
• Failure to address the Social Security time bomb.
• Failure to secure the Mexican border.
• Willingness to let port facilities be run by foreigners.
• The DHS and TSA. Treating our own people as the enemy do not make us more secure.
• The PATRIOT Act. Bypartisan stupidity.
• Iraq – Not the right place and mismanaged since Sadaam Hussein was deposed.
• Saudi Arabia – The Saudi wahabbiasts need to be held accountable for their moral and financial support of Islamist terrorists.
• Harriet Miers. WTF?
  

The Republicans have done some things right:

• Letting the vile, unconstitutional Assault Weapons Ban expire.
• Passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act.
• The recent law prohibiting law enforcement from confiscating firearms from lawful citizens in the aftermath of a disaster, when they’d be needed most.
• Justices Alito and Roberts.
• Taking the fight to the Islamists instead of waiting around to get hit again. While the wisdom of attacking specific targets is up for debate the fact is that rather than a passive response or crawling to the UN in response to Islamist aggression, the Republicans struck back, and pretty effectively.
• On the state level, more states now have CCW and more prohibit junk lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
  

So, when I go into the voting booth later today I’ll hold my nose and pull the Republican lever, because the only other party with a shot of gaining control wants to (a) stick its head in the sand and pretend the wolf isn’t at the door, and (b) take our society down the European socialist road.