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State of the Union
Choice of no choice
By: David K. Every
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Mar 13,1998
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 listened to the State of the Union address (1/20/04), and was impressed; once again, George W. Bush, explained that he gets most of the issues that are important to me. I was not a huge supporter during the first election (my wife was more so), I just thought he was better than the alternatives. But the more I’ve seen his actions and policies, the more of a supporter I’ve become, or realized there is no other reasonable choice right now.
           
George W. Bush started his State of the Union address by saying that we have military forces spread out all over the world, in order to bring hope, justice and freedom to the oppressed, thus making the world a safer and better place. Many that hate George Bush, or hate a strong U.S., want to ignore that fact. But that is a fact. That is the motivation of this man, and many in this nation that support the Iraq war or other actions. We figure that if we plant the seeds of freedom and prospertity in the middle east, and then give them the opportunities that we’ve had, then those that are vilifying us will have less reason to hate us and more reasons to live in peace with us and focus on their own prosperity. If they have nothing but a repressive government and poverty with a zealous religion and no freedom and promises of glory and paradise in the next life (and misinformation about the causes), is there any doubt they’d be more willing to seek their deaths attacking us? We’re not trying to spread Americanisms, we’re trying to share opportunities. We think it is their own despair and ignorance that contributes to them blaming us for their situations; so we’ll give them a chance to have a better life and more information to make up their own minds.
There is a low chance for success in Iraq; many in the world are against success there and working against us. Many don’t want freedom or for us to succeed. If we succeed, and freedom happens, then we are more powerful and influential, or it may weaken their own corrupt controls over their people (it might make their people envious or realize how much misinformation they’ve been fed about the U.S.). So many are working against us. Many in Iraq don’t want freedom or understand it, they want power to oppress those that are different than themselves; and they would cut off their nose to spite their face; meaning give up their own personal freedom if it means they can try to take freedom away from those they resent. It is tough to combat ignorance and hatred, but we feel we should try rather than sitting in our coffee houses, café’s and pubs lamenting the worlds situation.
This is why many Foreign Governments (or the U.N.) hate George Bush vehemently, or any other president with a strong foreign policy (Reagan, Bush-1, Nixon). And also why they love Presidents with weak or no foreign policies (Clinton, Carter, and so on). It makes sense for them. The weaker we are and less influence we have, the stronger they are and the more influence they have. The stronger we are, and more influence we have, the less they see themselves as having. So they fight us when they shouldn’t for ego reasons or short term personal interests over long term moral ones. They do wrong (or fail to do good) in the name of neutralizing our influence, instead of looking at what we are trying to achieve and what the outcomes of supporting us would be. That’s their problem; we shouldn’t pander to it.
Many Americans don’t want to see us vilified, or want others to like us. So they have a policy of appeasement, “Maybe if we do what they want, they will like us”. But buying love through capitulation is not a healthy relationship, and is bad for both sides; not to mention that it has never worked. The best they can do is leave enemies contemptuous of us (so they lower us in priority, slightly), but we get less of our interests covered and they are more willing to attack us since there are no consequences. The results are not only bad for us, but bad for the world.
So I look at how resented a President is by most foreign governments as an inverse metric on how good a President he is (in regards to Foreign Policy). Carter was a nice, honest, inept president in regards to Foreign Policy. He neutered our military, achieved nothing consequential, and was so busy being nice, that he was a puppet of others interests and got few of our own. Good man, lousy president. Clinton was more political than good, but he still didn’t achieve much good, and thus allowed a lot of bad. We have him partly to thank for not addressing problems like Bin Laden, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many others, thus making all those problems worse. Clinton and Carter were loved by the world community, because they appeased them and catered to them. And under them both, things got worse. I’d rather have effective and productive than nice.
Reagan, Bush and George W. all tried to address the problems of their day, and sadly that often leads to conflict with the unreasonable. They understood that you can’t negotiate as effectively from a position of weakness as you can from a position of strength; thus they tried to make America powerful, and then negotiate from there. Of course others hated that; their perception of multilateral is having us bent over and greased up, and thanking them for whatever they do to us. Since we weren’t their puppets, we were their enemies. They called us names or wailed about our actions; but the truth is that all those vilified Presidents actually did things and tried very hard to exhaust other options before using force. Sometimes force is the only option left. Since strong Presidents will eventually act in our interests, we ultimately did something even when others wanted nothing to happen, so they got mad.
So what has happened? The Soviet Union fell, Iraq was forced to leave Kuwait, Noreiga was removed, and so on. George W. Bush made Afghanistan much better and safer, and nearly eliminated the Taliban regime. He freed the Iraqi people and eliminated a dictator. Libya stopped their WMD programs and agreed to play much nicer with the rest of the world. Bush did in 9 months in Libya and Iraq what the U.N. was unable to do in 20 years in both places. Even North Korea, which is getting puffy, is getting pressure from all those around it to shape up. Most of those things that happened were better for us, and the world, so I’m glad they happened, even over the protests of those who vilify us for them.
The choice is clear, tolerate the intolerable or do something. We acted, and more often than not were more right than our detractors; we should be gaining credibility, not losing it – and political correctness over sanity takes it in the crotch. It’s not that I resent the U.N., I just value results; and we’ve done more than they have. The U.N. can either get on board and help, or they will be seen as the obstruction to peace and progress that they have been. If we had not acted, then the U.N. resolutions that were made, would have been revealed as the empty threats that they were (without the U.S. to back them up). There’s a ton for other countries to resent us for; but that doesn’t mean we were wrong to do it.
   
Now ironically, foreign policy is often the heart of domestic policy; if you have attacks from without, then you can’t focus on the problems within. So often you need a strong foreign policy to be able to have a strong domestic one. Domestically, what has Bush accomplished? Better national (home) security, better foreign policy, He eliminated Saddam as a world threat, freed the Iraqi people from his reign, and is progressing with full sovereignty and freedom. That gives them hope, and reduces the number of anti-American zealots in one nation. And in the rest, it focuses most of the zealots on not attacking our civilians in the U.S., but attacking our military in a foreign country (that mostly doesn’t want them either and is helping us to hunt them down, without the shackles of the U.S. constitution). That makes the U.S. much safer. We couldn’t have that safety domestically without addressing the foreign problems abroad. The charter of the President and U.S. government, it is to provide for a strong national defense. Bush gets that. Clinton and Carter did not. Awards from those that want a weak U.S. doesn’t change that fact.
When it comes to Social Programs in the U.S., there is none more effective than the U.S. military. This is a simple workfare program (much more effective than welfare); you do a job and you get paid and get training that will make you more employable in the future. 70% of military budgets go to people (not weapons). The U.S. military is the most effective social program we have. The Democrats love to slash it for special interest pork handout programs in their communities in order to buy (or rent) votes; then hypocritically vilify the right as being unconcerned with the interests of the working man or minorities. The military has helped far more minorities and underprivileged pull themselves up than all the other democrats social programs combined.
I’m willing to pay someone from the ghetto (or anywhere) to get a job in the military and then get a government paid pension, and get paid training, experience or an education. I am far less enthused about most of the alternative social programs.
Taxes are a burden on an economy and to people. George W. gave us long overdue tax relief, and is going to give us more. I’m hoping he can get the inheritance tax relief passed; imagine working your whole life and being taxed on all of it, and then you can’t leave it to your kids without 70%+ tax obligations. Instead of admitting the truth, the Democrats are trying to vilify it as “only helping the rich”; as if all those on medicare are rich, and so on. Tax cuts help stimulate the economy and help everyone; the rich just have more opportunities to take advantage of it. But when you try to punish the rich, you just punish the economy and the poor and middleclass (the rich can afford to buy people who find the loopholes or pay the democrats and republicans to put them in).
The more you tax an economy or person, the worse they perform, the more demoralized they are, and fewer opportunities they have. Taking $1.00 out of an area, in order to give $.30 back, with lots of regulations on how it will be spent (based on generalized national interest instead of specialized local ones) is never a win. The more we do that, the worse things get. We should govern more locally, and less federally. We should tax less, not more. You either understand the costs of centralization or you do not. Democrats do not, or more likely they don’t care because they gain too much by perpetuating the problems. Democrats want more control and money, because they can use redistributing that money or power as pork programs to buy votes. Republicans do it too; just less. There’s little nobility or common man interests in these things; there is a lot of personal interests. But it is easy to take money to empower yourself, it is hard to give money and control to others and trust them to do what is right. That’s what republicans get slightly more than democrats.
The truth is that the choice is vote for Republicans who will spend too much on pork, pet programs, waste, and grow the government (on the backs of the common man). Or you can vote for the Democrats, who will spend much more on pork, pet programs, waste, and break the backs of the common man, step on the highest performers, and harm the economy, all for personal empowerment. Neither has truly cut government. But given the choices, I’d rather have less bloat, more freedom and more opportunity. And if we start the trend towards support that, then maybe momentum will grow towards really reducing government.
The republicans are trying to open up our markets because it is right to allow more legaliz immigration. But that also allows more worker choices and drives down the cost of labor (for jobs that few Americans want). Republicans oppose amnesty for illegal aliens because we shouldn’t reward lawbreakers. Democrats want to close off immigration to drive up the value of American jobs and to appease their special interests constituents (the labor monopolies / unions). Then the democrats want to look the other way on the laws we have (diluting their effectiveness) as a way to try to buy votes from the illegal minorities who they often encourage to “vote early and vote often”.
What are the consequences of the democrats and pro-Union policies? The truth is that drives up the cost of goods and makes us less competitive world wide, which is part of why we have such a huge trade deficit, which is costing us more jobs to those countries, and so on. Democrats policies are at best good short term, and harmful long term; and at worst, just pandering to help degrade American competitiveness. Look, I empathize with labor, and some unionization is necessary and good. But like all things it’s about balances. Strong unions help workers with salaries. Long term they prevent natural competition and over-protect our markets (or themselves) from competition until those markets collapse under the burden and companies have to flee overseas or south to get away from them. This saves the American worker a little short term, and costs them more long term and destroys companies and industries. So too pro a position on labor results in people going from making too little, to them being unemployed and on the government dole; which is a win for democrats, who blame the republicans for what happened. The truth is that Democrats and Labor itself, or the situation in globalization, are far more at fault. I don’t find the democrats position as moral or good for the country or even the working man that they claim to be helping. They are only exploiting them for their own personal gain, and many of the workers are blinded by short term greed to see what is happening.
Look at healthcare; the Republicans say that Americans should be able to divert percentages of their income towards their own healthcare (free from taxes) and have choices on how it is spent and allow free market competition to work. The democrats were against that, proposing that they should be able to tax the people and companies more, and dictate to them how their healthcare dollars will be spent. Abstracting them from the problem and taking away their control is not going to make things better. Turning healthcare into a communist country is not the solution for the healthcare problems.
The Republicans support allowing small businesses grouping together to negotiation with private insurance providers (lower cost and more choices); the Democrats are against that and instead support centralization and everyone having to use their “one size fits all” approach with nationalized medicare, once again, to be power brokers to use that power to get votes.
The Republicans are for tort reform and fewer harassment lawsuits and more reasonable litigation settlement limits; which will radically lower the costs of insurance to doctors and organizations (and businesses at large), thus ultimately lowering healthcare costs, and many costs to the nation and its businesses. Having been in the healthcare industry, insurance and liability is a huge contributor to runaway costs, but all businesses have increased burdens of an over litigious society. Tort lawyers are one of the number one special interests supporting the Democrats; so they have been against putting any sort of constraints (especially reasonable ones) on such litigation. Democrats are exploiting the problem for personal gain, while Republicans are incompetently and ineffectively trying to address the root problem and educate the public. Which is worse?
 
I don’t think this President is perfect. Far from it. I’m not even a Republican, and have problems with many of policies or laws put in place; I’m pro-choice, I think we should have less moral legislation at the federal level, I’m against the war on drugs since prohibition empowers the lowest elements in society, I think we should have legalized gay marriages, and I’m for a more liberal supreme court, and so on. I want less government, and Republicans just grow government at a slightly slower rate than Democrats. I think republicans are willing to cater to special interests as much as democrats are. So I’m not a blind right-wing supporter. There are many areas where I disagree with the right. I’m actually pretty moderate, with some strong opinions both ways.
However, when I look at the severity of consequences, or the respective special interests the choices become more clear. Catering to businesses that are creating jobs and employing people or stimulating the economy is probably far better (or less worse) than catering to labor monopolies that are about driving business costs sky high and driving American industries overseas, to policies that vilify the rich and spending (which are the heart of our economy or concepts of freedoms), at systematically misinforming the masses, and being less free than the republicans with policies like gun-control, anti-smoking, over regulation and other things that suffocate our society, is much worse. Look at how all the social programs blaming society and the rich have done to split our society apart and make things more adversarial, and who’s the catalyst. Republicans basically say, “make the rich pay more, just not as much more than the democrats want”; and the democrats are saying “screw the rich” the top 5% are only paying about 53% of the total tax burden – they are evil and should pay more! Then the democrats (or republicans) put in loopholes and exceptions for their buddies. They’re both looking out for their interests, but one side is lying more about it.
Overall democrats are more hypocritical; they pretend that labor monopolies (Unions) are somehow more noble than businesses that provide the jobs to those people. They vilify and misinform, or cater to prejudice (like the resentment of the rich), in order to empower themselves. They exploit public ignorance and seldom address the real problems or try to inform people on the true issues. Look at education; the democrats love to whine about our poor kids in schools, but when they are in control they keep starting up new programs to “pay for school”, then they keep shifting other monies out to their pet pork programs to pay for their next elections. (The right does this too, but more often tries to shift money back and cut elsewhere, while the democrats obfuscate and call the republicans villains for trying to harm our kids). So I dislike the right, but not as much as the left.
I tend to vote Republican more often than Democrat, because they understand the job of the President and government more. The job of the President is to have a good (strong) foreign policy and represent our interests abroad (even when unpopular), and to counter-balance the spend-a-holic policies of congress domestically. It is not to vilify our businesses or our rich (which is minority that the democrats believe is OK to persecute in the name of tolerance), it is not to try to micromanage wealth redistribution, it is not to tax our nation into prosperity. The President domestically is a puppet; congress has most of the power. But the President is also a minor catalyst of change – having one that says we should spend less, and then not being able to prevent the growth, is better than one that claims we should spend more and declares open-season on Americans wallets.
Now I’m not against all spending. The more local the spending, the less bad; but the democrats support centralization and more, so need to be feared more. Democrats need to differentiate themselves and spread misinformation about the right in order to anger people enough to vote for them (and change). But they are ignoring what they are doing or supporting; so I’m usually forced to vote with the Republican because they are better than the alternative. Bring back a strong Foreign Policy Democrat like Truman or Kennedy, and I would consider them much more seriously for President. But for now, there’s no real alternatives in the left, and the left has moved away from the center (while the right is moving towards it), so logic and reason forces us (or me) to vote right.
Honestly, I think we have a reasonable government right now; a weak conservative congress that isn’t able to get anything too extreme or damaging passed (but has some balance in the two sides fighting), a strong President that is doing some reasonable things for foreign policy, and a fairly liberal Supreme Court that isn’t straining itself too hard doing much of anything. I’d prefer a congress and populous that understood the costs of spending, and so demanded cuts, thus increasing freedom and opportunity; but hey, one step at a time.
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