Monday, October 22, 2012

How Obama lost Me

OK, so as I promised, why I didn't vote for Obama either.

This one had me a bit more torn.  Obama has done more than any other president on marriage rights and equal treatment for people like me.  That isn't saying much.  He's led from behind, especially on DADT, and he's flip-flopped so often that I'm not sure I believe him.  But nonetheless, he's helped to turn public opinion in a positive direction.  If only he could articulate his opinion in a clear way.

Speaking of, he's also not W.

I wanted him to succeed.

I sort of knew that something wasn't right when a series of nominees had tax issues. As in nonpayment.  Treasury Secretary.  Wha...?  Say what you will about John Ashcroft, but he took down Arthur Andersen because it participated in the dishonesty of Enron and WorldCom and....  If this was the change we were hoping for (or the hope we were changing for?) then we were in trouble.

And we were.  Stimulus?  Where's my 6% unemployment rate?  I'm in the 'it probably helped' camp, but it wasn't helpful to over-promise what a fiscal expansion could do.  I like shiny trains.  But again, I don't see any vision as to how to deal with the debt, and I don't see any sense of humility.

"You didn't build that."  Yes, he was saying that private companies didn't build all of that infrastructure, but they did, with the government paying.  And who ultimately pays for these things?  The taxpayers, most of whom work for private business.  They sure did build that.

The way the GM bailout was handled.

The drone war in Pakistan.

The smashing of Libya and Mali to little bits, and more leading from behind in the Arab Spring, antagonizing the Egyptian public.  Oh, and a blatantly unconstitutional war.

My airport experiences have gotten worse, not better.  Pat-downs.  Naked scanners which ooze radiation.

My immigration experiences are no fun either, and I think that they are one of the single biggest contributors to anti-Americanism among educated people in foreign countries.

Basically, Obama's civil liberties record is like Bush's but a little worse in most respects.  There is no clear vision for the future, and what vision there is seems an awful lot like 19th-century Prussia.  While Romney is out of the question, so is Obama.

Since I am voting in a state which is out of play, Gary Johnson gets my vote.  He actually deserves it.  The Libertarian party has a history of nominating nutcases, but Johnson would actually be a good president.  He'll get one percent of the vote at most.

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