If I were political scientist, perhaps I could have titled this post, “Why our Democracy (Republic) Sucks”, but I don’t know why. There are complaints about the two-party system which are well-founded, but I don’t think that’s it. The biggest problem is probably more closely related to television news than anything. In any case, it looks like I won’t be voting for a presidential candidate in 2008. I spent awhile trying to find one I could vote for.

Clinton voted for the Patriot Act, Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, No Child Left Behind Act, the Secure Fence Act, favors censorship, favors the US bombing other nations. While I’m all for socialized health care, what the hell is it she wants to do to health care again? I still don’t understand. She displays little respect for our Constitution. In addition to ignoring the second amendment, she “supports making flag burning illegal, but without adopting the constitutional Flag Desecration Amendment to do so.” What the hell? The supreme court says that laws banning flag burning are unconstitutional–that means you can amend the constitution or give it up, not pass another unconstitutional law. She thinks we should just hand out tax dollars as birthday presents (WTF?). Clearly I can’t vote for her.

What about Obama? It’s hard to say– he’s been trying hard not to have a position on anything. He co-sponsored the BioFuels Security Act–you don’t have to be a genius to realize that ethanol-based fuels are a bad idea, but at least he’s in favor of at least considering renewed interest in nuclear power. He’s sensible about health care, realizing that an out-and-out socialized health care is the way to go, we’re already spending enough mismanaged health care tax dollars to pay for it. Unfortunately, it looks like he too is all for pointlessly bombing other countries. He makes good noises about immigration saying that he “will not support any bill that does not provide [an] earned path to citizenship for the undocumented population,” but then he votes for the Secure Fences Act. Other than the fact that he won’t say a whole lot, so I don’t have enough to complain about, my biggest complaint is that he voted for the 2006 Patriot Re-Act.

My best bet was probably Ron Paul. This is a guy who has (mostly) a deep respect for the US Constitution. In response to the 2001 attacks, rather than declaring war on an ideal, or unconstitutionally using US troops abroad, he proposed the Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 which would use a little-known power of congress to issue a Letter of Marque and Reprisal in response to an act of air piracy. Which is brilliant. While he votes against almost all legislation, he did vote for the Secure Fence Act, which is a blatant waste of funds if I’ve ever seen one. He wants to round up and deport illegal immigrants. Furthermore, he would like to amend the US Constitution to abolish birthright citizenship–the one thing that made this country what it is today. I can’t vote for someone who doesn’t appreciate that we’re all (aside from the Native Americans) immigrants. Finally, his anti-abortion stance wouldn’t be a problem because he believes that, “the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue,” which I can understand. But then he hypocritically votes for the partial-birth abortion ban! I can only support a candidate’s principles if he sticks by them.

Jonah’s a fan of Mike Huckabee. Aside from the fact that he doesn’t appear to have but maybe one or two more brain cells than our current president, I’ve got a lot of problems with him. We’ll start with his one similarity to Ron Paul: In a 2006 interview, Huckabee said that the legality of abortion “should be left to the states”. Okay, great. Then, in November 2007, he told Fox News that the federal government should outlaw abortion, stating, “For those of us for whom this is a moral question, you can’t simply have 50 different versions of what’s right.” Umm, yeah. He clearly has no respect for the Constitution, hoping to amend it to include a definition of marriage, because clearly that’s what it’s for. He’s demonstrated that he doesn’t understand the separation of church and state. His record in Arkansas proves that he’s fiscally irresponsible. He’s all for the clearly-not-working plan of sending more troops into Iraq, and in general seems to be in favor of blowing up other countries. And there’s reasonable evidence that he’s as unconcerned with civil liberties as our current president, and plenty of evidence that he’s an idiot. In 1992, he actually suggested that we quarantine AIDS victims: “If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague. It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents.” And simultaneously opposed federal funding of AIDS research, suggesting that Hollywood pay for it. Finally, he seems to think that we need tougher penalties for drug crimes, because, “they work,” and that we need to build more prisons to house the druggies. Course, he pardoned over 1,000 criminals in Arkansas because they found Jesus. Yup, a real winner. I’m actually pulling for him in the Republican primaries, because I suspect he’s totally unelectable. But then I thought that about Dubya, too…