| Tuesday, May
13, 2008
It's another day I'd as soon spend in bed. I have got to find more
energy.
Dr. Spencer, my primary physician, called yesterday. My blood work shows
my sugar is all right, my kidneys are ok, and my cholesterol is still too
high. All within reason. I see the oncologist next Monday, and I will
probably make an appointment with Dr. Spencer after that.
My chief problem is malaise, and given my temperament I am inclined to
call that funk or just old fashioned laziness, especially since everyone
tells me how much better I look. But will power goes only so far. I wish I
had a magic bullet to get my energy levels back up. There's just too much to
do.
==============
I have a number of letters about McCain and why we ought to vote
Libertarian and "Send a message." I understand the argument.
The fact is that the Democrats will control Congress. If they also
control the White House, we will have a series of legislative packages that
will make the Great Society look like a libertarian government. In
opposition the Republicans rediscover their principles; it's power they
haven't been able to handle since Newt Gingrich was Speaker.
The country is in trouble. We have forgotten our founding principles, and
we move inexorably toward a European style socialist state, with the only
winners being an enormous bureaucracy. This will accelerate the economic
decline.
The argument is to give the Democrats their head, and pick up the pieces
after the inevitable crash. I think that overlooks the resilience of tax and
tax, spend and spend, elect and elect regimes. We haven't seen much in the
way of reforms in Europe. The Democrats will create new bureaucracies that
can never be dismantled: an example is the Department of Education. Reagan
came into office determined to abolish it. Now it owns US education, and No
Child Left Behind is entrenched. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy is inexorable.
The country was reasonably well managed when we had a Republican Congress
and a Democrat President.
As to the war: if we give the Democrats full control of the government,
we won't get a sensible foreign policy: see Kosovo if you doubt that. We may
get a disengagement from Iraq: the price will be high, in blood of those in
Iraq who trusted us, and in honor. We may not. Disengaging from Iraq will
not be a simple matter. A gradual withdrawal won't work well: as we pull
out, the insurgents will be heartened. The result won't be pretty.
Sure, we can retreat. We have the military power to cut and run, get out
and get out fast. The results of that will be with us for a long time.
Recall the last helicopter out of Saigon?
I conclude that McCain as president is a far lesser evil than Obama would
be. But there are those in whom hope springs eternal: who hold the view that
Obama is not what all the evidence says he is, a left wing liberal
intellectual with Chicago political connections and all the ethical
implications that implies. Hope springs eternal.
Thus we have the choice: a Chicago machine politician with Harvard
liberal beliefs vs. a country club Republican who feels entitled.
The post-Gingrich Republicans who invented "big government conservatism"
have much to answer for.
=================
Nuclear Weapons and
Iran, with comment by Joel Rosenberg
=============
For an argument about Iraq and what to do, see
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/
la-oe-bacevich13-2008may13,0,7251551.story
I keep wondering what I would do if I were proclaimed Caesar. I may write
on that subject.
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