A central premise of many of the pro-Republican arguments for the election is the idea that we are at war, and that in one way or another this makes Republicans a superior choice. But I think America is at war only in the minds of some individuals, not in reality.
As you do, I wish we were at war. And it makes sense to regard 9/11 as the initiation of a war. Of course, it should have been.
But in foreign policy we are in a state of careful diplomacy, security forces distributed throughout parts of the middle east, and intelligence gathering for making arrests of individual terrorist conspirators who are treated as criminals and not military enemies. Domestically, we are in a state of heightened security.
There has been no declaration of war, and in the mind of the Commander-in-Chief there are no enemy nations, only individual conspirators (he forgot the “Axis of Evil” a long time ago). There is no military action going on. Iraq is the strongest example of our go-through-the-motions-while-doing-nothing policy.
We should be at war, but we are not. And there is no reason to think this will ever change under Republicans–they are never going to go to war in the Middle East.
The Democrats have the imperative of doing something different from the Republicans. That’s the way a two-party system works, by differentiation. If the Democrats took the election it would punish the Republican pacifism and introduce politicians who are under pressure to do something opposite to the Republican policy.
People know that the current Republican policy is not strong or cowboy-ish. The solution is to choose what is set opposite to it, the Democrats. And even though the Democrats will still be too weak, when and if they win, the meaning of the election will be a demand for strong national defense.
The Republicans took congress and the White House because people wanted a strong national defense and thought Republicans would provide it. It has become extremely obvious that they have not and never will–that is a main reason I agree with Dr. Peikoff that it is morally mandatory to vote Democratic.
Cartoon by Cox and Forkum.
