The Difference Between Obama And Romney; My Take On Paul Ryan

The Difference Between Obama And Romney; My Take On Paul Ryan.

Two days ago a good friend of mine sent me a link to an article that was making the case that the lesser of two evils is actually Obama, and not Romney. It was written by a hardcore conservative. I am not saying that just because he claims to be and I believe him, but because the site the piece was published on is stevedeace.com. Steve Deace is a Bible-thumping, God-fearing, Constitutional conservative. He has palled around with former Governor Mike Huckabee. The site has also had kind words to say about Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and even Ron Paul (though he likes to refer to his supporters as “anarchists”, which is only partly true) this election cycle. On the article I left a comment, and has been my habit in several of my most recent posts, I thought it would be worth publishing on my blog. Mine isn’t the only one worth reading. If you read the comments there and on sites like FreeRepublic (which I despise) you will know that there are plenty of non-Ron Paul conservatives out there who are fed up with Romney and would like to dump him at the convention. Keep in mind that I tailored my comment for a less than libertarian crowd.

[Referring to similarities between Romney and Obama not mentioned by the article’s author]:

And how about on foreign policy? Some people would say that this is their biggest difference, but I think, like everything else, it is all rhetoric. Obama may even be a little more incompetent than Romney in these regards. But then, that doesn’t mean much because it is the troops on the ground, not the commander in chief, doing all the work. So, while Obama’s incompetence may seem like it harms us, it really hasn’t had an effect on his ability to fight the “war on terror”. Just look at Osama. And how about them drones? And the TSA? And the DHS? And NDAA? Bush would be so jealous at the list of Obama’s victories, even if those victories are tainted by Obama’s multi-culturalism and UN sycophancy. We know that Obama and Romney agree on Syria. And even though Obama is not big on Israel, we know his stance toward Iran is about the same as Romney’s. A little less unilateral, sure.

Mitt’s new running mate, so-called fiscal conservative, and alleged budget-cutter Paul Ryan won’t even touch defense spending (which is six times that of China’s and 52% of the world’s defense spending. That means that five percent of the world’s population spends a little more money on “defense” than the other ninety-five percent!). Tom Coburn, a counterpart in the senate, and by no means a cut-and-run kind of guy isn’t afraid to make meaningful cuts to the Pentagon’s nonessential programs. Like planes they will never fly, agenda-driven social programs the likes of which are found in any federal department, and cartel behavior on the part of certain protected (ironically for conservatives, from the “ravages” of the free market) firms and industries with their no-bid contracts and ill-gotten favors and subsidies.

And how about spending? Experience should tell us that, almost without exception, each new presidential term, regardless of party, absolutely DAWRFS the preceding one in terms of the tab they run up. We know for sure that Romney 1 will be a much bigger spender than Obama 1. Obama 2 will also be a bigger spender than Obama 1. But if you asked me who would be a bigger spender, Obama 2 or Romney 1, I wouldn’t be able to answer. Nor would you unless you were bluffing or stupid. But the good thing about Obama 2 is that once its over, its over. With Romney 1, we will more than likely have to suffer through Romney 2 as well.

Its four more years of 100% big bad government or 8 more years of 99% big bad government. Followed, of course, by another Democrat president because they will blame conservatives for Romney’s mistakes, even though they were by no means a result of his conservatism, a quality which he lacks. The Democrats can just play the blame game like they did with Bush and we’ll get 12 to 16 years (two terms for Romney, during which the GOP and much of the base will go back to sleep, plus one or two for the Democrat that will exploit his mistakes) of tyranny. In the event of another Obama term, as bad as that sounds, at least its only four more years till we have another shot at an at least tolerable conservative.

What is the winner of the Veepstakes record on spending? Dismal. Paul Ryan was one of Bush’s rubber stamp yes-men when the President was running up the deficit to no end. But that’s okay, it wasn’t popular to follow the Constitution and act responsibly back then. There was no Tea Party to keep these crooks in line. So lets give him a pass.

And then there is monetary policy. Some say that Romney opposes stimulus and bailouts. And indeed he has said as much in front of crowds and cameras, quite recently. But any look at his record, including his support for TARP and his favorable comments on Helicopter Ben Bernanke will show you otherwise. And I have yet to hear one utterance on the Fed’s policy of lowering the interest rate (which caused the housing crash in the first place), granting favors to cronies outside of official bailouts, and printing money outside of official stimulus, namely quantitative easing.

If, when reading this comment you said to yourself, “hey, this guy sounds like a Ron Paul supporter”, you would be right.