For some time now, I have been considering the idea of supporting Barak Obama. I too feel like it is time for a change in America, and wanted very much to believe that Mr. Obama could bring a new form of leadership to Washington. A new form of leadership that would ultimately help our government evolve from the decided morass of deadlock it is right now. I was also swayed by friends who I respected tremendously who were advocating hard for Barak Obama.
After having looked at his platform, and his public speeches, I have to say that I am ultimately dismayed at what I am finding. I started this research eight months ago after having heard Mr. Obama speak at a small gathering in New York City. I was initially attracted to his want to embrace technology, by producing an actual Technology Platform Plank. This was all I ever wanted from a candidate, replete with a "CTO of the United States-like role". This, combined with his amazing ability to speak with vision and compassion seriously swayed me.
I am writing this blog post as someone who WANTED to believe. I even went out of my way to ignore the fact that he wasn't really saying anything of substance in these meetings . I chalked it up to the idea that a candidate needs to let his presence develop in a campaign and that coming out too early on issues can be death.
Now I find that Barak Obama is not the agent for change we have all come to see him as. As his platform evolves and real substance begins to drip from the cracks, we find the same Democratic platform issues wrapped up in the Barak Obama "Lets Change this Thing" fervor. Mr. Obama's campaign has either been hijacked by the Democrat leadership, or it was simply a vessel for wrapping the same ideas that lost the Dems the election in the successive two elections. It is all there for us to see:
1. Raise taxes using an unrealistic standard for the term "wealthy American". Does anyone NOT want to be thought of as "wealthy"?
2. Overshoot on healthcare to a level that we kill innovation, and hurt the very people we want to help....the caregivers.
3. Degrade, threaten, and chastise American business leaders, with no sound grasp of the complexities of actually "doing" business. Making it almost a given that our best and brightest shy away from running public companies.
4. Tell everyone that they want to create more jobs, then raise taxes on the very people responsible for creating new jobs. Small and Entrepreneurial business.
5. Displaying an unrealistic view of the world's political balance by threatening to open up negotiations with terrorist harboring nations, advancing unrealistic goals for an Iraqi withdrawal, and dealing with the now-irrelevant United Nations.
There is more, and obviously these are concatenated opinions, but this is the Democrat National Playbook talking, not a "Candidate for Change". I think you will find that all the circular logic that we got out of Gore, and then Kerry, is now being doctored up to come back to us as "Change for Washington". Yeah.....I bet. Change in the form of higher taxes when EVERYONE in America is suffering from the highest inflation in years. Change in the form of MORE government, not less. Change in the form of a ham-handed and ill advised rush to overhaul healthcare, creating a fully socialized, de-incentivized system that will bring us not the best and brightest, but the mediocre. Change in the form of dangerous, sadly naive foreign policy that will have us making deals with those who call us The Great Satan.
Last, but more importantly, Im disillusioned. I so wanted to see a true leader in Barak Obama, that I forgot about the real reason someone gets to the top in our political system. Perception. Or the idea that it isn't what you say but HOW you say it. I am disillusioned with those whom I respect. Those who so fervently support Barak Obama, and blind themselves to the idea that they are supporting a Trojan Horse for the Democrats to employ their social experiment on our nation. Or perhaps they already know this, and I am the one who is blind. This can only exacerbate my disillusion and force me to seek an alternative. I hope you, my reader, will as well.
