Every two years I go through this agony. I ask myself, “Have the Republicans finally deteriorated so much that I should not vote for them? Should I withhold my vote? Should I finally vote for (shudder) a Democrat?” This year’s agonizing has been worse than ever. The Republicans have become a party that stands for big government – but not quite as big as the Democrats want – and appeasing the enemy – but not quite as much as the Democrats want. The Republican motto should be, “Me too, kind of.”
Objectivists are divided over which party is the lesser of two evils.
Leonard Peikoff leads the faction voting Democrat, which includes
Diana Hsieh,
Mike at The Primacy of Awesome,
David Landy and others.
Robert Tracinski leads the faction voting Republican, which includes
Oakes,
Gus Van Horn and others.
Nicholas Provenzo doesn’t see what all the fuss is about.
Which party will do the least damage to individual rights and buy America time as the philosophy of Ayn Rand spreads through our culture? Although the growth of the religious right is ominous, the answer is still the Republican Party. The Democrats have been taken over by the New Left and have been radicalized. The Republicans have great potential for destroying liberty, but the Democrats are actually destroying it today.
Our campaign to spread Objectivism needs the right to free speech more than anything. The Democrats are the worst threat to this right. Political correctness, campus speech codes and thuggish attempts to shut up free speech are old news on the left.
In September prominent Democrats sent a
letter to ABC that was a veiled threat to take away their broadcasting license if ABC did not change the criticisms of Democrats in its movie, “The Path to 911.”
Neal Boortz fears the Democrats will use the Fairness Doctrine against right-wing talk radio if Air America fails. The religious right has the potential to do great harm to free speech someday. Democrats use the threat of government force to shut up speech they oppose today, right now.
Look at free speech in the socialist states of the West and you see where the Democrats would take us were they not restrained by the Constitution and the Republican Party. In
Canada, a shipment of pamphlets from the Ayn Rand Institute was stopped by Canadian customs and held for three days on suspicion of being “hate speech.” In
Britain you can be arrested for racism.
The Democrats threaten freedom in many areas. They are happy to subvert free elections to gain power. In 2000 the Democrats had telemarketers calling Floridians on the afternoon of election day in an attempt to whip up public concern about the fairness of the election. By the evening they had over 70 lawyers flying into Florida. This all indicates that they had planned in advance to contest the Florida election in court.
The Democrats have begun using mob violence to affect elections.
From
John Fund in 2004:
Last week, in Orlando, Fla., approximately 60 union protestors stormed and ransacked the local Bush-Cheney headquarters causing considerable damage and injuring one campaign staffer, who suffered a broken wrist.
…
Orlando's fracas was mirrored in Miami, where police reported that more than 100 union protestors stormed the Bush-Cheney office and shoved volunteers aside. No one was charged because most of the protestors left before the police arrived. In
Tampa, about 35 protestors filled the local GOP office and intimidated the elderly volunteers working there.
The AFL-CIO took credit on its Web site for similar demonstrations--apparently all coordinated--in Independence, Mo., Kansas City, Mo., Dearborn, Mich., St. Paul, Minn., and West Allis, Wis. In what could be a related incident, the Bush-Cheney office in Knoxville, Tenn., had its plate-glass windows shattered by gunfire on Tuesday morning before volunteers showed up for work. Another Republican office, in Seattle, was broken into and had computer files stolen.
Voting fraud by Democrats is an increasing problem.
From
John Fund:
A former Democratic congressman gave me this explanation of why voting irregularities more often crop up in his party's back yard: "When many Republicans lose an election, they go back into what they call the private sector. When many Democrats lose an election, they lose power and money. They need to eat, and people will do an awful lot in order to eat."
And:
Why is such activity proliferating? It flows from the success of Democratic lawmakers in pushing aside clear, orderly, and rigorous voting procedures in favor of elastic and "inclusive" election rules that invite manipulation. A machine for corruption is the 1993 "Motor Voter Act," the first bill that President Clinton signed. The law requires government officials to allow anyone who renews a driver's license or applies for welfare or unemployment to register to vote on the spot, without showing ID or proof of citizenship. It also allows ID-free registration by mail. The law also makes it hard to purge voting lists of those who've died or moved. All this makes vote fraud a cinch, almost as easy as when Tammany Hall handed out pre-marked ballots.
When Democrats let the truth slip out, their radical collectivism shows. Senator Kennedy made this now infamous statement while lauding the New England Patriots:
At a time when our entire country is banding together and facing down individualism, the Patriots set a wonderful example, showing us all what is possible when we work together, believe in each other, and sacrifice for the greater good.
Democrat think tanks recently advocated
“common good” for the party’s new slogan. (The staleness of the phrase supports Dr. Peikoff’s argument that the left is a spent ideological force. They have no new ideas.)
The Democrats show a cynical contempt for the truth. Bill Clinton’s presidency was an eight-year exercise in lying, distorting and evading. Since the advent of Borking the Democrats have increasingly resorted to character assassination and scandal-mongering to defeat their opponents; they do it far more than the Republicans. And when a Republican gets mired in scandal, he is thrown overboard. The Democrats rally around their people in trouble, regardless of the facts; power is more important to them than truth or ethical standards.
The Democrats believe that the end of power justifies any means necessary to attain it.
The Democrats oppose any assertion of American force abroad, even if it is in self-defense, unless the mission is purely altruistic as it was in the Balkans. The anti-Americanism of the radical left has infected the Democrat Party.
Finally, the Democrats want outright socialism on the fast track. Hillary Clinton attempted to make health care a fascist nightmare in 1993. The Democrats are NEVER for smaller government. They want the state to control every aspect of the economy.
To sum up these points, the Democrats:
1) oppose free speech
2) undermine free elections
3) oppose individualism
4) show contempt for the truth
5) believe the end justifies the means
6) are anti-American
7) are socialists
These traits are all aspects of totalitarianism. Yes, the religious right has the potential to destroy freedom in America, but the Democrats are actually doing it today.
You’ll notice that my argument is not for the Republicans, but against the Democrats. This is the dismal state of American politics today: the two major parties really are two evils. Many individual Republicans show aspects of the seven traits of totalitarianism outlined above. (Many politicians from the days of ancient Greece on have lied and smeared their opponents.) Both parties are taking us toward the abyss; the Republicans are jogging there; the Democrats are sprinting.
Some argue that the gridlock of divided power is ideal, therefore we should have a Democrat Congress with our Republican President. Gridlock worked superbly with a Democrat President and a Republican Congress, but I don’t think a Democrat Congress will fight Republican spending. They will only obstruct the war and mire Bush in hearings.
A vote cast today is not about what will happen in the long run; it is about what will happen in the next two, four or six years. Right now the Democrats are so far gone that it is best they do not control power in Washington, D.C. We need freedom NOW in order to spread Objectivism. In the long run, if we fail, then it will not matter which party takes us to the abyss of dictatorship.
UPDATE: Trey Givens informs me that I am wrong to put him in the vote Democrat column. I have deleted his name from the second paragraph. Sorry for the mistake!
