Sunday, November 02, 2008

The Terminator and a glimmer of hope

At the eleventh hour there is a glimmer of hope that America can avoid some of the European diseases like mass ranks of welfare recipients living as clients of an ever growing state. Despite the silver tongued words of Barak Obama, that is in essence what he seems to promise: higher taxes, a scaled down military and a much enlarged welfare state dedicated to "the redistribution of wealth".

While all serious commentators seem to agree on the result of the Presidential election, the polls do seem to be narrowing. Now at the eleventh hour a poll gives John McCain a lead in Ohio. This is signifcant as this state has been won by the winning side in every election since 1960.

If McCain wins Ohio on Tuesday (and if he also wins the presidency as well) I feel that in no small part will he owe something to "the Terminator" or Arnold Schwarzenegger. He gave a good humoured, uplifting speech with clear reasons why Obama will be bad news for America (and by extension the world). There is a chance, albeit far from certain that a corner has been turned. His speech can be seen below:


2 comments:

Rositta said...

I'm beginning to think that out in the wide world of blogging, you and I are the only two who are not terribly enamored with Obama. Problem is if you say it, you'll be accused of racism! It will be interesting for America if he wins, it'll be just like socialist Canada...ciao

Luis said...

I'm not sure if we are quite the only ones Rositta :-) But it feels close sometimes !

If Obama does win I think we'll just have to sit through and let all his fans cheer themselves to exhaustion. Only after that will they begin to realise what they have done:

Elect a man with no serious experience of high office and with very thin policies apart from raising taxes and an ill defined notion of "redistribution".

I partly expect a US version of Tony Blair's election in 1997. The socialist element were the most excited and jubilant, only to end up the most dejected and disappointed.

As for the racism accusation, I actually think the reverse is true in many cases. A white candidate would not get such support on the basis of such policies (or lack of them). Clearly there is a sense of history in about a black president but I don't think that should be the basis for electing him.

As for Europeans who talk about American racism, that is so annoying . What European country had a black candidate for the leadership of their nation ? None really but see fit to lecture the US !