Baffled But Unsurprised
I'll be the first one to say that I'm not surprised that Obama won and that McCain lost. As Rush Limbaugh has so aptly put it, McCain's entire campaign, other than Sarah Palin, was one big concession speech, and Barack Obama says "nothing" better than anyone else. Those two things together should cause no one surprise as to the result of the election.
That being said, I'm still baffled as to how, fundamentally, people just don't get it.
Raise taxes on the "rich"? Redistribute wealth to the "not rich" (who even knows what that means now or will at any given moment)? Universal health care? Raising of the capital gains tax to 20%? Raising of the estate tax? Or any of the other spending initiatives he and the other Democrats want to create? The fairness doctrine (I attribute the momentum here more to Congress than to Obama)?
The main thread running through all of these is that they are things people want (for themselves and/or others) based on how they feel. What everyone is missing on all of those, is this: Where in the Constitution does the federal government have the authority to do any of them (state governments are a different matter...which is how it's supposed to work)? I would love it pointed out to me. (Yes, it has the authority to levy taxes, but only to the degree that it is paying for that which it is justified to do in the first place! So if they stuck to what they should be doing as enumerated in the Constitution, taxes would go way down anyway).
It just baffles me to no end that folks are so willing and eager to dispense with even simple concepts of following the rules if they think they can get what they "want". And here's the thing: the Constitution allows for all of that stuff [admittedly outside of the spirit of its creation] via changes made within its own ruleset. But because changes to the Constitution for these folks to get what they want is hard (can you hear the whining?), they all just circumvent the rules set down for governing without a second thought. It's the Democrats. It's the Republicans. And it's virtually every single person who voted for Barack Obama and some of those who voted for John McCain.
The only folks who voted for Obama whose vote for which I have any respect are those who voted solely because they think that Obama's approach to national security is the right thing. Now, I vehemently disagree with them, but at least their vote is for something within the authority of the President/Federal Government to be doing in the first place.
Everyone else? Read the Constitution. Read the Federalist Papers. Read the Declaration of Independence. Get an idea of the reasons for the purposely enumerated/limited power of the Federal Government.
Obama will be taking an oath to uphold those rules and the Constitution. But he won't uphold that oath, the rules, nor the Constitution. The Constitution will continue to be symbolic (unfortunately Obama doesn't have the market cornered in unconstitutional governing). And you (you know who you are), most of the Democrats, most of the Republicans, and far too many people won't bat an eye about the throwing aside of oaths and rules because you'll be getting what you "want".
That being said, I'm still baffled as to how, fundamentally, people just don't get it.
Raise taxes on the "rich"? Redistribute wealth to the "not rich" (who even knows what that means now or will at any given moment)? Universal health care? Raising of the capital gains tax to 20%? Raising of the estate tax? Or any of the other spending initiatives he and the other Democrats want to create? The fairness doctrine (I attribute the momentum here more to Congress than to Obama)?
The main thread running through all of these is that they are things people want (for themselves and/or others) based on how they feel. What everyone is missing on all of those, is this: Where in the Constitution does the federal government have the authority to do any of them (state governments are a different matter...which is how it's supposed to work)? I would love it pointed out to me. (Yes, it has the authority to levy taxes, but only to the degree that it is paying for that which it is justified to do in the first place! So if they stuck to what they should be doing as enumerated in the Constitution, taxes would go way down anyway).
It just baffles me to no end that folks are so willing and eager to dispense with even simple concepts of following the rules if they think they can get what they "want". And here's the thing: the Constitution allows for all of that stuff [admittedly outside of the spirit of its creation] via changes made within its own ruleset. But because changes to the Constitution for these folks to get what they want is hard (can you hear the whining?), they all just circumvent the rules set down for governing without a second thought. It's the Democrats. It's the Republicans. And it's virtually every single person who voted for Barack Obama and some of those who voted for John McCain.
The only folks who voted for Obama whose vote for which I have any respect are those who voted solely because they think that Obama's approach to national security is the right thing. Now, I vehemently disagree with them, but at least their vote is for something within the authority of the President/Federal Government to be doing in the first place.
Everyone else? Read the Constitution. Read the Federalist Papers. Read the Declaration of Independence. Get an idea of the reasons for the purposely enumerated/limited power of the Federal Government.
Obama will be taking an oath to uphold those rules and the Constitution. But he won't uphold that oath, the rules, nor the Constitution. The Constitution will continue to be symbolic (unfortunately Obama doesn't have the market cornered in unconstitutional governing). And you (you know who you are), most of the Democrats, most of the Republicans, and far too many people won't bat an eye about the throwing aside of oaths and rules because you'll be getting what you "want".
