For the sake of clarity, I wanted to refute some things that have been said about how some of us Cuban-Americans have characterized Barack Obama.
I don’t believe Barack Obama is a communist. I do believe he’s a leftist. Despite his centrist rhetoric which is missing any concrete policy prescriptions, Obama has proven to be the most liberal Senator in that body, which is extraordinary considering the leanings of his colleagues like Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.
Why is this important? Well because the current crop of leftists in America believes more in the authority of the state than the individual liberties of the people. Our founding fathers, who were very wise, were cognizant of the nature of government and how government power grows on its own and always at the expense of personal freedoms. These people simply want to re-engineer the role of government. And over the years they have been very successful doing it. Despite the fact that we have seen that government can’t be trusted to do almost anything efficiently these leftists want to hand over control of the health care system to it as well the economy and the internet.
Secondly, I’m a taxpayer. I work hard every day to put a roof over my head and the heads of my wife and children. In 2001 and 2003, president Bush asked for tax cuts for all American taxpayers. He got them despite the “no” votes from Obama’s leftist colleagues who were in the House and Senate at the time and despite the “no” votes that were cast by John McCain. Those tax cuts are set to expire in 2010. Despite McCain’s opposition to the tax cuts at the time, he now pledges that he would attempt to make them permanent as president. I suppose I should be thankful that he realized he had his head up his ass when he opposed them in the first place. If Obama were elected and stayed true to form and allowed them to expire, we would all essentially be getting a tax increase.
Thirdly, his position to “negotiate” with leaders of rogue states is not any sort of a positive. Even the act of meeting in the same room with the President of the United States confers legitimacy on a foreign leader. That’s why presidents have been very careful about who they confer that legitimacy on. And that’s why it was a scandal when President Clinton literally ran into fidel castro and shook his hand. It should be noted that presidents of both parties have refused to have unconditional talks with the head of castro, inc. There’s a reason for that. There’s nothing to negotiate UNTIL the regime meets certain preconditions. That’s the price of poker. Trying to negotiate with the regime without first getting the long sought concessions from it is like continuing to play that game of poker with a confirmed cheater. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose. What magical words is Barack Obama going to utter that will make raul castro understand that he’s been mistaken for all these years? That his murderous ways were wrong? To step down from power voluntarily and face the justice he’s been evading all these years? What’s he going to ask raul castro? Will he ask raul how it felt to give the order to shoot down two unarmed civilian aircraft over international waters and kill 4 Cuban-Americans? Will he reward him for giving a good answer by loosening sanctions. People that think that negotiating with castro inc will bring anything good are out of their fucking minds. Maybe we should sit down and talk with Charles Manson too about giving him weekend furloughs.
As I’ve mentioned many times Obama’s Cuba strategy is not appreciably different from McCain’s or President Bush’s. Anyone who thinks removing remittance and travel restrictions for Cuban Americans does anything to bring “libertad” to Cuba is deluding himself. If this were the case, then libertad should have come in 2003 or 2002 or 2001 or 2000 or 1999 or any other year before President Bush enacted the current restrictions. That minor policy adjustment does nothing for Cuban liberty but it does give Obama something to hang his hat on. It’s a humanitarian argument based on the canard that there’s a lot of people out there that want to send more than $1200 per year to family members in Cuba or that it’s truly hard to make legitimate family visits to Cuba. It’s the cynical type of pandering that politicians are always accused of.
I recently heard the weakest logic about the Iraq war and surprisingly it came from a Cuban. How a Cuban could be against an armed U.S. invasion to take out a tyrannical dictator that had been oppressing his people for more than 30 years I’ll never understand. Polls have shown that the majority of Cuban-Americans favor such a military action in Cuba. But there weren’t any Al Qaeda in Iraq. That’s what we hear all the time. Fine. There weren’t. But there are now. That’s exactly where the enemy is now. If not for the Iraq war those same folks would be spread out around the world wreaking havoc, perhaps even here. Instead we have trained professional soldiers fighting them over there. The idea that Islamic jihad would not be attractive to such people if we weren’t in Iraq is ludicrous on its face. The war is expensive. Yes it is. All wars are expensive. Fighting murderous people that seek to foist their backwards and evil ideology on the world has proven to be an expensive proposition. It was true in World War 2 and it was true during the cold war and it’s just true today. Retreating from Iraq now would be more than a simple embarrassment for our country, it will have serious repercussions down the road. Moderate Muslims will NEVER again believe that the United States will stand with them against the extremists.
I’m no fan of McCain. I’ve been a conservative for as long as I can remember and a registered Republican for 20 years (since I turned 18). McCain has proven that he’s not a conservative and he’s barely a Republican. He flirted with leaving the party in 2001 and talked with John Kerry about being his running mate in 2004. Unfortunately he’s the man which was given to us by our flawed primary system. A system in which independents and Democrats can influence who our nominee is. If elected, McCain will have to be held in check by the few remaining Republican conservatives otherwise we’re going to end up taxing our economy into oblivion in the name Gaia.
He also wants to do away with the $102,000 FICA payroll tax cap, which means anyone making over $102,000 would pay an additional 7 percent in taxes on earned income.
Pure Bunk!
Henry; you’re on the money! However, don’t discount the Iraq-Al Qaida connections. Opponents of the war have peddled the Lie that there were no connections at all, when the truth is that Iraq did have links with AQ. There is plenty of proof showing how elements of AQ trained in Iraq and how they had low-level discussions with Iraq’s intelligence services. Stephen Hayes in his book “The Connection”, lays it out very well. In fact, there was pre-war US intelligence confirming the ties (the Clinton Administration admitted them), and more has come out as they Very Slowly translate the millions of captured Iraqi documents we’ve obtained after the invasion. Unfortunately, liberal members of the intelligence community have distorted the facts in order to satisfy their own political biases. Having said that, there is no evidence AQ and Iraq conspired on the 9/11 attacks, and the Administration never made that claim. They were simply scared to death, after 9/11, that those low-level ties could become stronger – a very prudent fear given the attacks. Unfortunately, the liberal/left has effectively distorted the facts to their advantage.
Henry:
Not so sure, after all it was Howard Dean who met with the renamed Italian communist party not so recently. Why would he do such….
Henry, while it is indeed your prerogative to bash John McCain, please tell me what you know about Ronal Reagan’s political history, no need to be too broad, you’re a knowledgeable guy, so I’m sure you are aware of Ron’s history as it pertains to a fair assessment of McCain
Angel,
Please don’t patronize me. Take a look at the masthead of my other web site: http://CubanAmericanPundits.com
Ronald Reagan was a Roosevelt Democrat but left the party largely because of long conversations he had with his father in-law, Dr. Davis. He noticed how the Democratic party was shifting. Reagan became more conservative over time. McCain is the exact opposite and his voting record since he first got to Washington has become more liberal over time. Reagan was quite of aware of the corrosive power of Washington on conservative principles and I’m sure he’d point to McCain as an example of how that corrosive power works.
Reagan DID compromise on issues. Compromise means giving up something to get something. McCain does not compromise, he capitulates. He attacks his own party and closes ranks with the members of the other party. Reagan loved the Republican party and loved conservatives. McCain barely tolerates both.
These are the facts. If you can’t see McCain for the RINO that he is then what can I tell you.
Obama claims that McCain is with Bush on 95% of his votes which is true. But that’s the problem. The party’s leader, the president has strayed away from the conservative reservation too. That’s why his approval ratings are so low. Half of the country is going to hate Bush no matter what. He should therefore try to please the other half. Instead he signed so much pork into law and otherwise abandoned the principles that Reagan and later Gingrich used to convince the American people of the rightness of conservatism.
Comparing McCain to Reagan today is a joke.
Reagan did try to push his party. He was a maverick but he was pushing the party to the right. McCain is doing the exact opposite, he’s pushing the party to the left with his stupid campaign finance reform act that has had the exact opposite effect of what it was intended to do. Instead the money is more important than ever has been driven underground into these 527 groups that have no accountability, meanwhile our rights to free political speech have been infringed upon. The fact the president signed that bill still dismays me. But McCain should have been excommunicated from the party just for sponsoring it.
McCain is no conservative. And the fact that I may have to be forcibly taken to the polls by my wife to vote for him is repulsive to me. I know the alternative is far, far worse, but it still raises my ire when I think about him taking the mantle of Reagan and placing it over his liberal shoulders.
Angel, take a look at the direct quotes of John McCain from the GOP debate at the REAGAN LIBRARY (a beautiful place which I made a point to visit):
https://www.babalublog.com/archives/007254.html
His rhetoric surely had the Gipper rolling over in his grave just outside the building.
Henry, I was not patronizing you, I don’t practice that behavior, perhaps you got me confused with someone else, apparently you are not able to understand or accept a compliment that is extended to you not to patronize you, but to give you the credit that you deserve, you need to get out of the one track minded muck in which you have been drowning, or perhaps you misunderstood the point I was trying to make.
Concerning McCain, he is not perfect, far from it, none of us is, he is however, a politician, his non-ideological style of politics is more in tune with Ronald Reagan’s core values and belief in the democratic process within the tenets of the Republic that the founding fathers of the U.S. had in mind for this great experiment, within which we are current participants, than yours seems to be.
McCain has the right to change his opinion about a subject, just like any other intelligent person can, the instances that you have mentioned were debunked awhile ago, especially the most notorious one that you have stated many times, I’m referring to the McCain and Kerry meeting back in 2004, McCain showed up out of courtesy and quickly refused to accept what was offered, he knew that it was against his principles and was also aware that it was a Kerry campaign trick to lure the independent vote that only McCain was able to carry at that time.
McCain’s claims that he is a Reagan conservative appear to be taken out of context by many right wingers, not all of the so called right wingers though, he is not Ronald Wilson Reagan and has never claimed to be the Gipper. Henry, in politics it is essential to be able to read the popular perception of those for whom the people are expected to vote and be additionally able to establish a platform from which to deliver a message that the populace can relate to without abandoning the values that have taken that politician thus far, the only candidate from the Republican Party that stands a chance of becoming Commander in Chief in January of 2009 is and has been for quite some time John McCain, that is the real reason for the query that I placed at your disposal yesterday, the right wingers of the GOP (the same ones that do not give a crap about Cuba, Cubans and Cuban-Americans yet masterfully manage to convince people such as you that they do care) can barely contain their disdain for anyone or anything that falls outside of what they consider to be real Americanism, this primary season the only one of them that had, either the testicular fortitude, or the sufficiently low IQ and its concurrent mental handicap, to publicly express their true feelings was Tancredo. They play the Cuban-American community in South Florida for all it’s worth and then treat you as though you were third class citizens, trowing crumbs your way, many of you dare not demand your slice of the pie which you have rightfully earned but will never be given as long as you keep on playing along, like the good boys and girls that they expect and want you to be. When are you going to wake up? The question is rhetorical, you will never wake up as long as you keep on living in Havana-redux, a.k.a. greater Miami, do yourselves and most importantly, the Cubans in Cuba a great favor, go live outside the Cubanized cocoon where you now live, go live among your beloved extreme right wing Republicans for a year, that is assuming that they would rent to you, and then tell the world what your beliefs are.
Angel,
I’m sorry if you took my response as an attack. The fact is that McCain is not an ideologue and is guided only by his own personal code. That scares me. His track record shows that his instincts lead him away from conservatism not toward it. As far as the 2004 Kerry flirtation, according to Kerry it was McCain who approached him not the other way around. As to who debunked it, I’d like to see that. I haven’t seen anyone debunk it. And about 2001, I heard another account on XM satellite radio’s POTUS channel the other day of McCain wanting to become independent and caucus with the Dems.
You are correct that McCain can’t claim to be the Gipper. The Gipper would have never uttered the kind of class warfare rhetoric espoused by the Dems and repeated by McCain. Neither was the Gipper anti-corporation as McCain seems to be. McCain’s brand of politics is a populist light variety. It’s not for me, sorry.
Tancredo is an idiot.
And lastly, how the fuck do you know where I have lived and for how long?
Go vote for McCain if it makes you happy. What do I care. Either way we’re going to end up with a liberal Democrat in the White House. Just stop trying to convince of something that isn’t so.
McCain is not conservative. Period.
The only other alternative we conservatives have in this electoral cycle would be to vote for Bob Barr, Libertarian party canditate. No third party has ever won more than 12% of the popular vote with no electoral votes, so other than registering as a mild protest, this would be the equivalent of throwing away one’s vote.
I’ll probably hold my nose while voting for McCain, because he is the lesser of the two weevils. What an Obamination it would be to have the Democrats win!