Geoausch

Four years ago, I sat glued to the television as a then state senator, Barrack Obama, addressed the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I’ve written extensively on how Obama’s speech moved me to tears and the way it charged me to join the campaign for John Kerry. As a young, self-styled intellectual, Obama’s nuanced world view spoke directly to my progressive values system.

At that time, I felt that Obama represented a branch of political theory that would lead to a more just and equitable society, one based on freedom and liberty. Eventually, I realized that his ideology was the antithesis of these ideas.

You see, both parties are filled with idiots. The “Rapture Right” theocrats that occupy the Republican Party represent a threat as great as the socialists that dominate the Democratic Party. Both sides get it wrong, attempting to use government as a tool to further their own agendas. Without a doubt, I agree with more of the Democratic Party’s platform, especially on social issues, but it’s the foundation of the Democratic Party—government is a tool that should be used to better society—that prohibits anything good ever coming from the Party or its’ candidates.

Obama’s previous area of expertise, “community organizing,” should tell you all you need to know about the man and his principles—a general contempt for free-market capitalism and those who choose to participate in it, which at its’ very core is a rejection of the just and equitable society, based on freedom and liberty, I spoke about earlier.

The government that prevents a citizen from maximizing the profits of his or her business, or the government that looks at a certain economic class and says, “you’re not paying your fair share; we’re going to take more from you,” tramples on the Constitution just as much as the government that seeks to limit the rights of minorities, discriminates against homosexuals, limits the reproductive rights of women, censors books, music and/or movies, etc. Likewise, the government that tells you how many miles per gallon your car must get, what temperature to set your thermostat, how your restaurant must prepare its’ food or whether or not the patrons of your bar can enjoy a cigarette with their cocktails, respects the ideas of “freedom” and “liberty” no more than the government that limits free speech, religious expression or gun ownership rights.

All across the board—capital gains tax, dividend tax, income tax, inheritance tax—Mr. Obama seeks to raise the rate of taxation. Indeed, Obama and his cohorts feel so strongly about their agenda for the government and their would-be administration that they feel they need to institute new taxes based on the size of your home, how much natural gas and other natural resources you use, taxes on your retirement accounts and even new taxes on the already obscene price of gasoline—the audacity of this man and his fucking taxes!

More taxes mean more government; more government means more problems. As Ronald Reagan said, the eight most frightening words in the English language are, “we’re the government and we’re here to help!”

Inevitably, I would raise hell at a gathering of modern day Republicans. I’m pro-choice, pro-gay rights, anti-Patriot Act, against capital punishment and I believe the “war on drugs” is a joke, but I have a solid belief in the foundation of the Republican Party, that is a political philosophy based on a limited government and of free market capitalism.

You see, we achieve justice when we achieve equality. Equality can only be achieved absent the heavy hand of a paternal government. Equality begins with each individual recognizing no person is entitled to anything outside the realm of the Constitution and accepts the responsibility for his or her own actions. Equality begins with the individual recognizing that responsibility extends beyond the individual and into the community. Equality cannot be legislated, for once the government gets involved, one party will be held above another and justice becomes an impossibility.

Four years ago, Barack Obama came before the Democratic National Convention to share with us his story. It was a poignant, well-crafted story, delivered to lay the ground work for an agent of change. Tonight, Obama took the stage at the Democratic National Convention, as his story came full circle, and I now see it as a “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”