Inaugural Entry

I suppose since the election is two days away, and this being a political blog, I guess I should mention things about the upcoming 2008 presidential election. I support McCain / Palin. It's funny how the election draws so much heated emotion and passion among people, and that's good. Quite frankly, a presidential election is a great thing to get passionate about. The line I am careful not to cross is when emotion - as it is prone to doing - doesn't cause me to make irrational decisions.

Although I have always viewed myself as a social conservative, I have not always supported the Republican ticket. In the past, especially during the Clinton years, I found myself more attracted to the Democrats. I am voting for the Republican ticket because quite frankly I agree more with the Republican party on issues such as the economy, personal finance, venture capitalism and its stance on social welfare programs. I come from a family that is in that top 5% of people whose wealth is going to be "redistributed." However, that does not mean by default I am anti-Obama. My cousin actually worked very high up in his office shortly after he moved to Washington as a senator, and I entertained a lot of her discussions of his policies. Based solely on Obama's proposed tax reform, I would vote Republican, and I personally am in a tax bracket that has a lot to gain from an Obama presidency. I'm not going to quote dozens of industrial and imperialistic-era philosophers like Hume, Marx, Neitzsche and whoever else - it's not my forte. I think in a modern era we should rely on modern philosophy, using the minds of the past as framework or as examples. From a moral standpoint, I think people should be allowed to keep what they earn. Reap what you sow. Not all people are given equal gifts. The people who are able to profit more financially from their gifts, others are just good at being enterprising industrialists. To take money away from them and "redistribute" it to people, some of whom don't even pay taxes, just seems like sending the wrong message. How inclined would you be to work to attain something if somebody waved a magic wand and said you were going to get it for free from now on? That goes for health insurance as well. I'm sorry, I may sound elitist, but I don't believe that top notch healthcare is a right, I think it's a privilege. Here's something ironic too. We're always hearing about how the middle class is "the backbone of American society," and how "the middle class gets burdened with the most taxes." Actually, the people with the middle incomes only pay 30% of the taxes. Less than 10% of people - the top 10% - pay more than approximately 65% of the taxes. The bottom 30% of people pay something like 5% of the taxes. Instead of rewarding success, I feel an Obama presidency would marginalize and penalize it, or at least make it seem undesirable. I know the figure of Robin Hood is steeped with an air of romance and idealism, but to the people on the short end of the stick, it was hellish. I hear a lot of people say "well, there's more people in the middle class than the upper class, so too bad for them." I really don't think that's fair. You're going to imprison the upper class for your own gain? Did they do that to you? Just because there's "more of you" doesn't mean you have the right to dictate how everybody else is going to live. That's not capitalism and it's not democratic. I feel some people need to accept more personal responsibility for their lot in life, not band together with other disenfranchised people and other people who feel powerless and aggravated, rationalize your jealousy and resentment for those who are better off than you and claim what they have earned as belonging to everybody. That's called socialism.