Look. I am either overloaded or brain-dead. All I am reading about is the election, and all I am inclined to talk about is the election (and maybe Alabama football). The problem I run into while I’m perusing all of the various blogs and news articles during the day, is that I cannot possibly make a stronger argument than those who do this sort of thing for a living. So it is with a strange mixture of relief and resignation that I endeavor to submit my personal list of must-read political material. I will continue to keep a sharp eye out for these sorts of articles from now until election day. These will be selected for their relevance to my undecided, conservative and libertarian readers. My only personal, direct plea to those friends would be that they should read these pieces with unbiased eyes. You don’t have to take them to heart. You don’t have to agree with them or with me. But please click the links and give them a once-over. I don’t want to destroy your way of life or take away your hard-earned income, and neither do the progressive politicians I endorse. I don’t want to debate or argue. I just want to present these closing arguments from a diverse range of political thinkers. Here’s the first batch:
1) Ryan Sager on how Karl Rove and his protégés have alienated the fiscal conservatives and libertarians.
2) Robert Shrum on the changing times – the failure of Reagan-era politics and economic theory.
3) Andrew Sullivan’s Top Ten Reasons Conservatives Should Vote For Obama. A snippet:
Until conservatism can get a distance from the big-spending, privacy-busting, debt-ridden, crony-laden, fundamentalist, intolerant, incompetent and arrogant faux conservatism of the Bush-Cheney years, it will never regain a coherent message to actually govern this country again.
4) Anne Applebaum, an “independent female voter” on Why McCain Lost Me.
5) An Adobe Flash presentation of the many, many conservative thinkers, writers and politicians who have turned away from the Republican Party due to “The Palin Effect”. My favorite quote is from Christopher Hitchens:
This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just “people of faith” but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.
More to come over the next and final week of the 2008 election season.
I don’t get to vote! :(
Tried today, but no. Moved from Kendall to Kerr County last year and did not re-register in the new county… which is apparently a bad thing.
Kendall sent out address confirmations – clearly I never got mine – so they canceled my registration.
I can now re-register and be eligible to vote… in 30 days… :(
Everybody who can, VOTE! I will live vicariously through y’all!