It’s
the nuclear button, stupid.
I HATE
TO INTERFERE, BUT…
This
is an isolationist (sorry, non-interventionist) site. To try and
influence a foreign country’s politics is paradoxical for this
site. Last week I was proclaiming loudly that if the Austrians
wanted to elect a Blair clone who can’t keep an opinion solid
for a week, then that is entirely up to them. But I must appeal
to you, as a concerned subject of Her Britannic Majesty’s, please,
please elect someone sane to your highest office. After
all us Limeys will dutifully go to war on behalf of Bomber
McCain, and I for one do not want this.
IT’S
NARROW DOWN TIME
Look,
I know that Bush
ain’t perfect, I know. But with the compressed primary
season there is no time to worry about this. Keyes
is a truly impressive candidate. Anti abortion, anti gun control,
anti intervention, and unlike PJB he’s a free trader. I’d vote
for him, if I lived in New
Hampshire. But it’s beyond that. Keyes, we must recognise
does not stand a hope. As for PJB, well I want a President
Buchanan, but he is in a different party now. If Bush was
the front runner heading for a near inevitable coronation then,
a protest candidate makes sense, but the
McCain threat is real. If the core definition of Conservatism
is recognizing and working with the world as it is rather than
as we would want it to be, then here is a situation that we have
to work with. This IS the situation that the Republicans are faced
with, a
two horse race between an imperfect candidate and a stark
raving bonkers candidate. It’s time to forget your principles
and vote for the sane guy.
"THE
MISSILES ARE FLYING, HALLELUJAH"
You
may, or may not, remember the film The
Dead Zone. It features a man who can foretell the future
by shaking a man’s hand. This film is quite boring until half way
through he meets a politician (running as a sort of independent,
cut the baloney candidate) who he sees, in his futuristic way, as
President. Not only is he President but he also wishes to launch
the world to nuclear destruction. The most chilling part of this
so-so film is the flash-forward where the President announces that
he has for no reason decided to bomb Russia, and announces "The
missiles are flying, hallelujah." Can you imagine Bush, or
even Gore, proclaiming that? Now think about McCain, are you sure
he won’t be gibbering this three years hence? Really, really sure?
NOT OF
SOUND MIND
"You
can’t say that, only a mad man would want destruction for the
sake of destruction." I think that this is my point exactly.
Only a brave man would claim that McCain was not several
bricks short of the full house (however, considering his violent
tendencies, if I was around the psychopath I would agree with
everything he said). Let’s look at the record. He was shot down
over Vietnam, as Dubya’s father was over the Pacific. It didn’t
make Bush, Sr. a psycho, so McCain, Jr. should not be effected
by this. He
then betrayed his country to the Viet Cong, under admittedly
terrifying circumstances. Speaking as someone who has not neither
been tortured nor studied psychology I think that I cannot condemn
him for betraying his country, I may have acted in exactly
the same way. However the issue is not McCain’s record (and his
betrayal of his country is part of his record as surely as his
earlier service for it) but McCain’s present state of mind. To
someone who sees himself as a strong patriot his treachery, of
which only he knows the full extent, must rankle. This has led
him to lose his sense of proportion. Any bellicosity is
seen as patriotism. To
oppose a war, any war, is treachery, and McCain has
no intention of being a traitor again.
THE PRISON
CAMP DILEMMA
Now
many McCain supporters will simply say "Cut the guy some
slack, he’s been through a traumatic experience." Indeed
being tortured, denied medical attention and not seeing your home
country must be traumatic. I thank God that I have never been
through any experience remotely like that. But this is not a case
of who had the best war record, but a case of who’s going to have
the best record for keeping us out of wars. His trauma in the
prisoner of war camp can be a reason to admire his bravery, to
pity his experience or explain his mental imbalance; it is not
a reason for voting for him. It is missing the point; I am not
condemning him for going insane, just saying that his precarious
mental state disqualifies him from leading a nuclear power.