Fiscal Conservatism

I have grown so powerfully annoyed with every straight-faced, strong-jawed politically reasonable Democratic nominee vainly claiming the paradoxical title of "social liberal, fiscal conservative." I would venture that the two descriptions are mutually exclusive (based on my understanding of the phrase, fiscally conservative). That is, they favor (i) a nearly "flat-tax" (because it's "fair", at least, based upon the grade-school understanding of the notion), (ii) minimal spending on educational and social programs and (iii) corporate subsidies (read welfare for the rich - because baby-Jesus knows we have to protect our biggest businesses so that the benefits trickle-down to the underlings, notwithstanding the direct conflict with free-market capitalism). The problem with those policies, other than their apparent disconnect from good economic theory, is that they make social-liberalism necessarily impossible. The problem is that poverty, and its repercussions: crime, disease, starvation, etc., is already a tax on the entire society, but one, which, by definition, weighs heaviest on the poor. Thus, social taxation is already regressive, and fiscal-conservatism exists only to exacerbate it. This is anything but socially liberal; it’s atavistic and socially irresponsible. How can generally well-educated people ignore basic logic, or history for that matter, which has confirmed, if there was ever any doubt, that growing disparities in economic well-being simply cannot last and will have to be confronted one way or the other. In the prescient words of Rage Against the Machine: "hungry people won't stay hungry for long!"

Conservatives (fiscally or otherwise) have always been behind politically (its the natural outcome of conservatism), and they will continue to be. In fact, I think history can be simply defined as the proving of conservatives wrong, their ideology slowing giving way to the realities of progress. It’s just a matter of time and circumstance. Progressives, not ironically, come up with progressive ideas, conservatives bitch and moan about how things were different/better when they were young, how it's just not fair, charge us with utopist naivete, and then a century later fold and pretend they were on board the whole time. Just imagine if you could describe our current government to some fiscally conservative Republicans from the turn of the 20th century (i.e. McKinley), he would think we were all socialists. Describe our new national education program ("Leave no middle-class white kid behind"), nationalized prescription-drug bill ("Leave no voting senior citizen behind"), or our national faith-based programs ("Leave no potential convert to Christianity behind"), and George W. Bush would seem like Leon Trotsky.

Presidentially speaking, I think Kucinich is far and away the best candidate. However, he's shackled by his reasonableness, and will be relegated to the role of primer for future real-liberals (he's the Adlai Stevenson of the early 21st century). The rest of them (Sharpton and Brown excluded) are all just water-downed conservatives. Dean's a little better than the rest, but not much. The wrestling scream was the best thing I have seen out of him so far. That being said, any of them would be an indescribably vast improvement on the current administration, and will likely have my reluctant vote.

Kerry's Pansy-Ass Gunshot Wounds

It seems that every bored, ex-military conservative in the bible-belt with a working knowledge of the satan-inspired internet has decided to devote entire websites to the unpatriotic service of Kerry in Vietnam, and, more particularly, the insignificance of the wounds Kerry suffered there. Even worse, in a shocking turn of events the boys at Newsmax appear to agree. Look, even Jack Kelly is outraged.

Take, for example, the ultra-specifically titled "Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth," and their damning claims that Kerry spent an inadequate number of months in the cushy Mekong Delta, ran (away, mind you!) from enemy gunfire, made up stories of his own war crimes (for presidential empathy presumably) and arranged for medals to be awarded to himself for what appeared to at least half of the doctors in Southeast Asia as mere non-fatal wounds. These thoughtful organizations and noble armchair warriors help the rest of us understand just how pussy a shrapnel-inflicted flesh wound can be (a pussyness only exacerbated by Kerry's Clintonesque efforts to evade said shrapnel) and the unfitness for Presidency resulting from such pussy flesh wounds.

Far too as yet unshot to make my own determination as to Kerry's war record, I must restrict my analysis to the less salient question of when the Presidential election became nothing more than a battle over who suffered greater injury in a war. Shall this be the only standard by which we measure our candidates? If so, why not throw out the elections, find the toughest, meanest, most-decorated soldier alive and appoint him lifetime emperor. Or, maybe only those people who have had every male member of their family in combat should be allowed to vote at all, like this freak.

By the way, how does Bush measure up to these difficult standards? While Kerry was play-fighting in the Epcotian sector of Nam, Dubya was embroiled in an epic battle with cocaine, hookers and the guy taking attendance at the Texas National Champagne Brigade. I truly believe that Bush is the worst President in a century, but I never begrudged him for not fighting in Vietnam, because I never deemed it a requirement of a good President. I was more concerned with him being a complete moron, a concern which has proven decidedly valid. We desperately need to rethink our priorities in this country.