Why McCain would be Bad for America
By: DI In-House Historian and Philosopher, Leonard Carrier
2/7/08
Now that the dust of Super Tuesday has settled, the Democrats are no closer to having a nominee; but the Republican race seems to have been decided. Although there are more primaries to come, the surge for McCain will probably be enough to carry him over the top. Only the stubborn candidacies of Romney and Huckabee stand in his way, and it is difficult to imagine that there are enough Mormons to energize the former, or enough evangelicals to pray for the latter. A likely Republican ticket might even feature McCain and Huckabee—the former as the standard bearer and the latter carrying the Bible. If this turns out to be the case, then Sinclair Lewis’ prediction may well be fulfilled: “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
As bad as a Romney or Huckabee win might be for the United States—the former a fork-tongued draft-dodger during Vietnam, and the latter someone who would favor the Bible over our Constitution—a McCain presidency would be even worse. This is because Americans would be expecting someone better, but would be getting someone who would sorely disappoint them. It might be difficult to imagine someone worse than the present occupant of the White House—the utterance of whose name sullies the mouth—but it is true, for the reasons I shall now adumbrate.
For women who are pro-choice on the question of abortion, McCain offers something to ponder. In 1999 he said that he would never work to repeal Roe v. Wade. In 2007 he announces that he is now in favor of repeal. Women who remember only his first stand might find themselves disillusioned when he acts upon the second one.
Although styled by the media as a “moderate” Republican, in reality McCain is an extreme right-winger. For instance, he supports NAFTA, CAFTA and other globalist policies that have hurt American workers and shipped their jobs overseas. Also, if you thought that the Republican drive to privatize Social Security was over, think again. McCain is in favor of privatization, and would doubtless bring the subject up again if elected president. So much for moderation when it comes to providing a security net for our seniors.
McCain is no more moderate in other areas. If you think that health-care reform is important, you would again be disappointed in McCain, because he does not think that the government should intrude to expand health benefits for our citizens. If you are concerned about the sorry state of public education in our country, McCain’s solution is to provide vouchers for students to attend private schools. This, of course, leaves children from poor families in even worse schools than they suffer now. If you think that Bill Clinton went too far in punishing the poor with so-called “welfare reform,” then be prepared for more of the same from John McCain. Be prepared also for continued support for capital punishment and mandatory sentencing for crimes, policies that have fallen mainly on the backs of the poor and disadvantaged.
The most important reason to fear a McCain presidency, however, is in the foreign policy that he would implement. In this area he is an unregenerate hawk, having said recently that he didn’t care whether our occupation of Iraq lasted for one hundred years. This was not a slip of the tongue. This is the real McCain, a supporter of an imperialistic foreign policy that would continue his predecessor’s policies of using our military forces to bomb countries into submission. His singing of “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb-bomb Iran” was really no joke, but an expression of his views on how to conduct diplomacy with other nations.
You would think that five and a half years in captivity after being shot down over Vietnam would have taught him that wars of aggression are not in our best interests. But McCain has always been a slow learner, having graduated only five places from the bottom in his class at Annapolis. His frequent wrecks in flying aircraft before being shot down on a bombing mission over North Vietnam showed dangerous tendencies as a pilot; and, despite the fact that both his father and grandfather were Navy admirals, McCain’s rebellious streak kept him from achieving any higher than the rank of captain when he retired. McCain’s stubborn temperament doubtless helped him survive his captivity, but his life was also saved in the first months of his imprisonment by having the North Vietnamese learn that his father was a four-star admiral. Thereafter, he became a valuable prisoner, and although he was tortured he was kept alive. The torture finally “broke” him, and he signed a confession as an “air pirate,” admitting that he had reached a point where he could no longer withstand the physical punishment. Before his ill-fated bombing mission over North Vietnam, McCain barely survived a disastrous fire on the aircraft carrier Forrestal, prompting him to have reservations about the missions he was flying and the carnage he was causing to the Vietnamese. These reservations didn’t last long, however, and McCain was soon again in the air over Vietnam.
In his political life, McCain has also admitted to sacrificing his principles to political exigencies. This is what truly makes him unfit to be president. He is like Medea, who, before killing her children, claimed to be “knowing the better, but doing the worse.” Such weakness of will might be a fit subject for a tragedy, but not if centers on the leader of the free world.
What makes McCain’s candidacy even sadder is the debt our present president will leave us with, debt that will balloon to more than $3 trillion according to the budget recently submitted to Congress. With McCain’s commitment to undiminished military spending, this money must come from somewhere. It won’t come from raising taxes, because McCain has already pledged to keep low taxes for the very wealthy in place, and to kill the inheritance tax that the rich use to keep their children in the upper class. The only way to find these funds is to cut our social programs—ones that benefit ordinary Americans, as well as the least among us. So if you are planning to vote for McCain because you see no difference between Republicans and Democrats, be prepared to see more people falling out of the middle class as the elites of Wall Street continue to ride the war-driven gravy train.
Len Carrier
