Who’s That?

John McCain’s choice for Vice President is less fascinating than the means by which he apparently chose her–and the reasons people applaud him for it. Like Obama, she wasn’t chosen because she was perceived as the best person to become Commander-in-Chief and protect the country. She was chosen because she is perceived as someone who understands and feels compassion for major sectors of the country–working mothers, blue collar “Hillary” or “Reagan” Democrats, and the like.

What has happened to America? This is not a commentary on Sarah Palin one way or the other. She may well end up as President, given McCain’s advancing age, and she might actually be a good one–whereas we can know for certain Obama cannot and would never be an acceptable President. But she’s not being selected for the right reasons. In a free country, a President is chosen who can best defend the nation against violent aggression; and who can (in today’s context) do the best job at limiting and reducing government intervention in both the economy and in the private lives of citizens–since the nature of government is, unfortunately, to grow and try to violate the rights of the individual at every turn. Palin is a Republican, but that tells you little more than her under two years in major public office. Ditto for Obama, grandiose speeches notwithstanding. McCain and Biden are career politicians whose records are well-known but not reflective of what a President, under a limited government, was supposed to be.

If you select a Vice President–or a President–for the wrong reasons, you will probably make the wrong choice. If you end up with a good one, it’s only by luck. If Palin someday becomes President, and if she’s a pretty good one, then we’ll be lucky. I’m open, because I have no other choice and because I will do anything in my power to vote against Obama. Jimmy Carter’s policies? Karl Marx’s ideology? Been there, done that. The 1970s were a disaster and Soviet Communism an even bigger one. At least Palin really is an unknown, whereas Obama will most certainly be a Western European-style socialist. But I’m tired of relying on luck. And I’m sick of living in a nation where the majority seem to care more about how a President feels towards their everyday concerns–doing laundry, getting dinner on the table, paying their cable bill, which SUV to buy–than how to simply stay out of the way and protect them from violence.