We’ve heard a lot of talk from Obama about change in Washington and McCain has recently taken up that mantra, though he calls it reform.
As I watched the Presidential Candidate Forum on Public Service this evening, during which both McCain and Obama took turns lecturing the American People on their duty to serve their nation, (as I recall the government is the servant of the People, not the other way around–which just goes to show that our politicians think of themselves as our masters), I came to the inescapable conclusion that Joseph Farah is right. We ought not to vote for John McCain under any circumstance. I had already decided not to vote for him beforehand, but listening to John McCain speak at the forum definitely removed any lingering doubt.
Judy Woodruff asked McCain what he would have done on 9/11/2001 to keep the memory of that day, and the spirit and determination of the American People to serve and safeguard their nation, alive to this instant date. Apparently Sen. McCain has not only joined Sen. Obama in the “change” mantra, but he has adopted Obama’s call for a civilian national Praetorian Guard.
McCain said that he would have had the government create new organizations, such as a Neighborhood Watch organization, to patrol the nation and to guard nuclear facilities. As absurd as that is, apparently Sen. McCain is unaware that such an organization already existed throughout the nation prior to 2001, and therefore needed no federal government creation . The organization, by the way, was coincidentally called Neighborhood Watch!
McCain went on to say that in those good old days of American unity he would have proposed legislation of service to country. Just what the form of that service would have been he did not say. One can only imagine! But the point is that he seems to think that the American People were so afraid post-9/11 and so united from that sense of fear that they were ripe to be “lead”(manipulated) into accepting a demand from the federal government in the form of legislation that they must serve the government.
McCain continued by explaining just what some of those organizations would be that he would have created, or rather have expanded, to counteract the terrorists and to keep America safe from future attack. He said he would have expanded AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps!
I am sure that we all would have slept so much better knowing that thousands more of our citizens were swelling the ranks of these organizations to secure us against further terrorist attack! But, when McCain went on with his next line the thought I had of just how foolish this comment about expanding Americorps and the Peace Corps as the front line of our national war on terrorism was waswas immediately replaced with more dreadful thoughts. The thoughts evoked when a statist speaks.
McCain said that we need to also expand the military, this in the context of national service.
When McCain was asked in turn about what he thought the solutions were to assuage the feelings of the American People that the nation is headed in the wrong direction and what he felt were the Citizens’ obligations to the state, beyond paying their taxes, McCain again offered the solution: military expansion accomplished by inspiring the American People to face the challenges we face as a nation. What were those challenges? McCain mentioned Afghanistan and Georgia, but we can presumably add Iran and Iraq to that list, as well. So, the principal kind of “service” that McCain wants to inspire the People to volunteer for is military service, which will expand the military and allow McCain to continue U.S. military adventurism and intervention throughout the world.
In the alternative, I suppose that McCain would be just as satisfied if the People served in Neighborhood Watch, AmeriCorps, or the Peace Corps instead of the military. He may well reason that if the volunteers in these organizations can defeat the terrorists at home by patrolling the block or standing guard in front of nuclear power facilities that they are just as fit to be deployed across the world to take out the likes of the Iranians or Russian military.
McCain then waxed nostalgic about just what the federal government was able to accomplish back in 2001 when the American People were sufficiently pliable. He lauded the fact that the federal government was able to bring about the, “biggest reorganization of government”, and with it the greatest expansion of government power, made possible by the American Peoples’ unity at that time. McCain said that to bring about such change again the American People just need to be inspired again.
Just what was that “inspiration” McCain is talking about? I seem to remember that “inspiration” being fear, anger, and a sense of vulnerability. So, all that need happen for the People to once again be “inspired” to expand the military by serving (as fodder for U.S. aggression), thus enabling a President McCain to war against Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Russia, is for the American People to be made to feel angry, fearful, and vulnerable once again.
McCain went on to crow about the needed reform he had already, as the maverick he is I suppose, brought to Washington. What was that reform? McCain/ Feingold campaign finance reform, which legislation just happened to be an overt assault on political freedom of speech, which assault serves to give the advantage to incumbent politicians who are standing for re-election.
McCain’s idea of reform in Washington, then, is one of an expanded military and massive government reorganization (expanded government power), and protection and insulation for incumbent politicians, made possible by “inspiring” the People again through feelings of fear, anger, and a sense of vulnerability, to serve their government (masters) by flocking into military service.
Given what I have heard from John McCain’s mouth tonight, I call upon my fellow citizens to volunteer for the most important public service that you could possibly perform in defense of this nation. That public service is in withholding your vote from John McCain and Barack Obama this November. Neither one of them is deserving of our votes.
In fact, I call on you all to go one step more in your national service by running all incumbent politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, out of Washington. That is the real change/reform we need!