I posted a long response to k2o4's blog, and I'd mentioned putting up a sort of conservative-equivalent of brett's blog a while back. Unfortunately, politics make me sad, and I'm neither particularly conservative nor liberal sooooo this won't really fit the bill of an anti-liberal blog. Instead, I'll probably just make this one post (pardon the title) to try and elicit a little LP.net discussion with a slightly conservative slant to the initial rant
From k2o4's blog:
i think that the republican point of view warrants some explaining. one of my friends is a staunch conservative who is very involved with the mccain campaign in the southeast. yesterday he was talking about the mccain campaign's decision to try to trash obama's image
the point conservatives are most adamant about, recently anyway, is that they aren't responsible for the current state of the economy, and secondly that they were not in favor of the bail out bill.
- on the bailout bill: according to the conservative strategists, the only way that mccain could have even the slimmest chance of winning the election in november was for the republican side of congress to pass the bail out bill. the irony of the situation is that conservatives thought that the bill was bad for the US but that obama being elected would be even worse for both the nation and of course the republican party.
so, the republicans openly supported the bill (though maybe without the enthusiasm of democrats) out of necessity.
- on the economy (my own opinion): it's entirely disingenuous for the democrats (who hold a significant majority in congress) to blame the bush administration for the recent stock market / banking meltdown.
Wiki: The Fed has a lot of the explanation: basically Bush's administration appoints much of the oversight, but all of the appointees have been confirmed by the Senate and are subject to a degree of Senatorial oversight, meaning that a democratic congress (read senate: obama/biden) is equally culpable for the financial situation. And beyond all this, much of the central banking system is privately handled, so at least some responsibility falls outside the government structure.
I think it's got to be equally clear regarding the war in iraq that while democrats may disagree with it on moral grounds, the current economic description of the war is entirely misleading. The correlation between US gov. debt and market / financial institution erosion is entirely misleading. Government spending, in most macro economical models typically improves the nation's GDP and unemployment (because the government is generally employing its citizens in some capacity with its spending). And unemployment is a
leading economic indicator(s). SO, the oblique references made by democrats to government spending for the war on terror as a major cause for economic complaint is not well-grounded.
i guess other big problems with the democrats and the economy are that socialism is not a sound economic system because it does not, generally speaking, maximize the utility (value, basically) of either the private or public sector. it reduces real income in pretty much every model and yet, the recent bail out bill basically has a bunch of "riders" that are rapidly working to socialize the united states' financial institutions. largely these riders are the product of a democratic congress who was largely in favor of the bill. to say that the country's financial institutions require more oversight is a far cry from a 4 page bail out bill being frantically rewritten into a 100+ page document that no one has time to read or evaluate (especially not US congressmen)
another problem with barack's economic policies is socialized health care. yes it has achieved some good in other nations, and yes some of the complaints against it are wildly speculative, but the serious flaws inherent in socialism (and any system that defies market-clearing prices) are present. what's worse, is that socializing health care, as the industry currently stands, ignores that there is currently a serious problem with health care pricing, and that the problem is growing rapidly. the problem currently is a lack of market-clearing price levels (for which the government is largely responsible). the enormity of the central government in the united states has lent itself to a lot of "rent-seeking" by medical company representatives seeking special privileges (which are often granted). so pretty much, my argument is that the government really must move to effect a market-solution to discover the "actual value" of health care as it is currently supplied and demanded before moving to create a socialized system (if a socialized system is a good idea), and that obama's plan appears like it will compound the problems of sky-rocketing health care prices while shifting the burden from the consumer to an already indebted government.
ugh okay i've cleared interjected a lot more of my own analysis than i wanted, but anyway i think i'll end by quickly saying that the republicans have enacted the strategy that they have because they feel so strongly that obama and a democratic congress represent a lot of injury to the united states in the near future. it's more of a desperation tactic where the ends are thought to justify the means (which as someone else alluded, is a conservative hallmark).
i personally think that if more people were better educated as to the issues of this 2008 election, the campaigning would have to take a very different form on both sides. to my eyes, both sides are very sensationalist and it's sad to see that it works so well on our biased electorate.