I'm watching the debates & good Lord do I have a bad feeling about this - in a Star Wars kinda way of course.
Rudy is trying to explain away his views on abortion, gun control, etc... & honestly it seems his argument is not so much that he had a decent reason for supporting such measures & he's still a republican/conservative/not evil but that Hillary is such a nightmare he looks Reagan-esque in comparison. Sadly that's the argument they'll use to talk you into voting for him if he wins the primary.
Y'all know I like Paul, but his spat with Rudy probably cost him. Therefore, assuming he is indeed out I'd think Huckabee is the best choice. He wants Fair Tax & he has friends that own machine guns.
To quote Huckabee from the HH interview I linked above:
"HH: What about machine guns, Governor?
MH: I’ve got friends who own them. They have the legal process to own them. But once again, I’m not afraid of a law abiding citizen owning anything. I’m afraid of a criminal getting his hands on a gun. That’s where the crackdown needs to be. This country’s gone crazy. It’s cracking down on law abiding citizens, and turning their heads at people who break the law. That’s the polar opposite." (emphasis mine)
What's surprising is that he doesn't seem to be as popular on the gun blogs as Fred Thompson (McCain-Feingold supporter) or anyone else really. We have a candidate (other than Paul) who has a decent shot (sadly, unlike Paul) who has pals with full auto weapons. Yet most gun bloggers are yammering on about other folks & I just can't grok it. Am I missing something about Huckabee?
I'll lay it on the line (subject of course to any other developments in the candidates respective views or histories); if I had to speak my peace now & say no more until after the election I'd say that Paul, Huckabee, Tancredo & staying my "narra" ass home are the only real options, in that order, that I can see for November 4th, 2008. I just don't see how any of the others are acceptable. & yes; (very arguably) McCain, Rudy or Romney would be better than Hillary (in the short term*) but if those are the choices then I can't say I want to pay my money & take my chances. (*In the long term McCain, Rudy or Romney would lead the repubs further left/socialist & in turn the dems would drift even further left/socialist).
I have a feeling that the next election (like most of our previous ones) will be something that makes a Douglas Adam's explanation for alien behavior seem acceptably logical (an example is in the extended entry).
From So Long & Thanks For All The Fish (scroll down to the Douglas Adams On Democracy section)
[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship...]
"I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
Posted by Publicola at May 16, 2007 05:25 AM | TrackBack