Why Bother With Electoral Votes?

With just a few days to go to that magical November 4th date when the president-elect is announced, I have to admit even I am getting annoyed by the media worship of Obama. For some time I had attributed it to the left being completely fed up with the conservatives but it occurred to me that something's awry.

We have a great election system in the US and we can thank the founding fathers for having the sense to protect us from the folly that is populism by instituting the electoral college system. Yet it is evident that populism has begun the overtake the senses of our electoral college to the point where it is no longer possible to identify whether a Democratic congressman or senator, and some Republican ones, are heeding the call of populism or are holding fast to republican ideals this country so long depended upon.

What makes populism dangerous is the fact that crowds can be swayed by emotion, as evident by the very huge crowds Obama draws, yet very few people in those crowds understand what Obama's policies mean to America. In addition, the very people who are charged with constraining the powers of the executive branch are suffering from the same fever of populism that has taken ill the general public. Not only are Republicans and conservatives in danger of losing the presidency, but they risk losing the ability to rein in any executive radicalism which in the current world will certainly prove to be detrimental to our legitimacy as the last bastion of trure democracy. In the event that Obama wins, the electoral college will fail to protect us from populism. One only has to to look at Venezuela and Spain as of late. It is no longer sufficient to hope that this is the United States and that it would not be possible for us to completely disregard the warnings of our founding fathers, we've got something coming alright.

For the past few days more information on Obama's ideology has surfaced further reinforcing the notion that he harbors socialistic ideology. Although in substance there may be nothing wrong with his belief that socialism is better than capitalism or market economics, there is a reason why Americans have continually rejected socialism in the past. Furthermore, if the tape in possession of the LA Times indeed portrays what it is purported to, then a close ally of the US in the Middle East is (i.e. Israel) is certain to see a dramatic drop in support should Obama win, irregardless of what he professes to the media.


It is the media -leftist in general- that has given Obama the tools of victory. If information is key to victory in this day and age then the leftist media has dropped the ball. Often times we hear the media complaining about suppression of the freedom of speech by the government, yet many media outlets are engaging in near suppression and have completely ignored the background of Obama - yet more evidence of populism. The major topic of the past few days has been taxation and health care. We hear from Obama supporters how it is so wonderful that his tax plan will spread the wealth from those who make a decent income to those who don't make any. I am all for charity but I detest any notion that the government should tell me how I dole out that charity. If the liberals are so inclined to redistribute income then let them do it without forcing the rest of us, who already think that a progressive tax is an idiotic idea, to our own devices. The main counter-argument to Obama's blunder of wealth redistribution is that we already have a progressive tax system so a little bit more from a larger number of tax payers is no big deal. Hell, many Republican presidents including Reagan and Bush have endorsed such a tax system. However, rather than start a fight in the Congress and among the people on the merits of flat taxes or otherwise, the Obama tax plan increases the ratio of which those with incomes above a certain cutoff marginal tax rate will pay even more. Combining this increase in the marginal tax with the myriad of increases in other transfer payment programs, such as the recruiting of a "teacher army" in the words of Obama to the payment of credits to those who make poverty wages and students who are not employed or otherwise make poverty wages, one is left to wonder if Obama will not be forced to lower that cutoff salary range of $250,000 to generate more government income. The worst of it all will be when Obama announces that he will be dipping into defense spending to pay for all of his welfare programs. All of this assuming that he wins. I am still holding out hope that McCain will win. He must, for our country's sake.