It DOES Mean Something

The following was originally posted as a comment at Protein Wisdom. This comment, along with the original post put up by Mr.Dan Collins and updated by Mr. Jeff Goldstein is my answer to Mr. Totten:


I’ve been trying to articulate my rejection of McCain across several different forums… but I can’t do better than what the two of you (Collins and Goldstein - ed.) have done with this post.

In the blur of the last few days I saw a commenter elsewhere say “you vote the lesser of two evils long enough, one day you end up knowing you are voting for evil” or something very similar….

Back when I was in the service one of the institutional things you heard a lot was a variation on “It ain’t nuthin’… ain’t nuthin’ but a thang”…don’t mean nuthin’”.

You score orders to the school you’ve been trying to get in to for literally your entire enlistment… and they get canked because you need to go to the desert and shoot at sand dunes. Again.

The battery works three six-day weeks getting everything ready for the Inspector General’s inspection. You lay everything out, every man falls in, perfectly uniformed, every piece of equipment the unit owns is parked, laid out with all it’s gear… and the IG team is two hours late, time enough for the southern California June rainstorm to turn the whole thing into a “count noses and call it good” farce.

Your best friend, who left the Corps but came back in after exchanging letters with you, gets his ass buried in a building in Beirut. And your government runs away.

I voted for George W. Bush, twice. At first I believed that at his worst he would bring ethics and some sort of adult normalcy back to at least a small part of the freak show the last eight years had reduced Washington to. I was impressed with his tactical political skills; anyone who could defeat the Clinton’s heir and their media was defacto nobody’s fool. The opening stages of our response to 9/11 were heartening, as well. The second term was an easy call to make, given the other option.

I believe that the pursuit of the ideals of American representative democracy is the first best hope for the survival of mankind. Our system, when it is faithfully adhered to by all citizen parties, replaces the impulse to kill for personal gain with the higher faith that compromise and cooperation are more profitable for everyone in the long run.

We are a sad and vicious crew. We still don’t think much past our next meal - not much past the next piece of ass for males between the ages of fifteen and twenty five - or whatever the next distraction is. We thirst for entertainment today; yesterday, we thirsted for a better life and worked hard to get it.

Looking at the crew before us - Obama, Clinton, McCain… I am reminded of the era of Praetorian Emperors of Rome. They, too, were chosen by the insulated elite of their time. The Guard was not so much military as it was the remaining functional, effective power in the empire.

The Praetorians selected their caesers based on the ineterests of the Praetorians. But the press releases always emphasized “for the good of Rome”.

I’m done with the Republicans. I could have voted for Romney based on his demonstrated high ethics and superb business accomplishments. I also believe he would be at least as effective as Bush has been in fighting the war we are able to fight in this atmosphere of lotus eaters and hacks. The continued successful prosecution of the war, especially under ANY Republican administration, will demand an executive impervious to childish and bad-faithed nay saying by political opponents and one iron-willed in carrying the fight to the enemy where ever and when ever he is found.

The GWOT is going to end one of three ways:

1. The West surrenders incrementally over the course of the next three generations, and the world returns to a kind of Ottoman Empire blur until the oil runs out.

2. Europe wakes up and world war four shifts into high gear. Trains are involved.

3. The United States continues democratization as long as we can afford to, and the budding democratic republics in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the moderate emirates, generate a sect of Islam that serves as that religion’s Reformation.

There’s fourth option, but I am not going to go there. If we go to a hot war with China, option four becomes a sideshow to the real fight.

And ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake about it: it will be financial/civic collapse that destroys this country before any bearded child killer plops a Koran on the desk in the oval office. And McCain, Obama, and Clinton, and the majority of the parasites infesting that swamp near Baltimore are contributors, not remedies, to the coming collapse.

John McCain isn’t going to meet in the middle with any Democrats. He’s going to slip them the club handshake and get busy getting on with the business of managing the peasants so that they can’t hurt themselves or, more importantly, incumbent office holders. That means nurturing victim classes, legislating curbs on that pesky political speech stuff, erasing those meaningless lines on the map and those pages in the dusty old history books that used to tell us who we were. The pages that used to tell us how we got here, and what the road looked like.

That’s all done with. We get what’s good for us - as decided by those oh so more qualified to dole it out.

That’s John McCain’s way, and if you can find the difference between Mr. Changeyman and Ms. Rodham -Borgia, you go right ahead and do so. The differences will be tactics; the end strategy, and results, will be the same.

I’m not voting for a Republican candidate whose entire resume is a democratic platform primer.

I cast my vote for Gov. Romney in Utah’s primary today.

I do not expect to cast a vote for the office of president in November, and am prepared to not have a candidate for the foreseeable future.

This refusal to choose where there is no choice is not a futile gesture. It does mean something. At the very least, my hand is not pulling the rope tied to the noose around my neck.