In the mix of all the issues in this election, one stands out: individual liberty. Both candidates state that they will fervently support the Constitution, but one of them is making proposals that will hamper or even entirely eliminate individual liberty. The difference hinges on each candidate’s definition of the purpose of the state.

The Constitution of the United States of America is a model for a system of government designed to enable the prosperity of the nation without directing it. It provides a framework for a federal government that promotes the cooperation of the states on those functions that transcend the governance of any single state, such as national defense and interstate commerce. The Constitution names the powers the federal government has, and the Bill of Rights says that if a power is not ceded to the federal government, then it remains with the states and the citizens.

One of the hottest issues in the current campaign comes under the heading of the economy. With regard to the economy, the federal government mints the money and assures the free flow of goods and services through all the several states. The role of the federal government in the economy is to enable free enterprise. This is the way the Constitution is written.

It is interesting to note that one of the most revered thinkers in history, Moses Maimonides, said that the highest form of charity is to do the things that enable a man to earn money and stand on his own two feet. The role of performing that high level of charity is written into the Constitution. It maintains order within the republic and assures safety from outside attack. It enables the states to cooperate so that goods and services flow freely through the republic. It maintains a safe money supply. Otherwise, it leaves the citizens free to pursue their dreams and create wealth for themselves.

Barack Obama does not support this model for the country. He believes that the federal government is more important than the dignity and freedom of individuals. He has the vision that the state has more value than individual dignity. He wants to give people money and things, but he plans to acquire the means for these gifts with high taxes that rob the individual of the reward for hard work and ingenuity. If you want to check what Obama really stands for, take a look at his endorsement from the Communist Party USA. If anything should make you doubt Obama’s goals, this should be it.

John McCain stands for our Constitution. Constitutional government provides citizens with the greatest opportunity for freedom and prosperity. This is what we all want, even when handouts look good to us. We know in our heart of hearts that the economic stimulus checks we received last spring are just a forerunner of new taxes that will be required to replace that money in the national treasury.

When you vote, choose a candidate that will get out of your way and let you pursue your dreams, not one that will mandate what work you can do, what food you can eat and what doctor you can see. Vote for freedom. Vote for prosperity. Vote for the Constitution. Vote for John McCain.

I read an article today about an employer who not only refuses to hire any employees who smoke, but he also goes after their spouses. He is encouraged in this endeavor by a public attitude and a few huge court settlements that have made tobacco a four-letter word. Smokers are discriminated against in ways we would not tolerate if the discrimination were about age, gender or religion. To date, our increasingly socialist government has never made it illegal to grow, sell or buy tobacco or any of its products. The only thing illegal about tobacco is using it.

One wonders how such a thing could happen in a free country. Supposedly in the USA, if a product is legal, we are free to use it. When the product is tobacco, that freedom is daily being compressed. How did this happen?

The root of the problem is healthcare. Back in the days when people managed and paid for their own healthcare, the use of tobacco was every individual’s own choice. The government paid subsidies to tobacco farmers under certain circumstances, just the same as it did for corn and cotton. Some people smoked; some didn’t. Some smokers got sick and died; some didn’t. A few very elderly people attributed their longevity to a daily cigar. If a smoker, or anybody else, became ill, treatment was provided by means of interaction between a doctor and a patient. That was it.

Today, things are quite different. Today, hardly anyone pays for his own healthcare, and most people think that nobody should pay for his own healthcare. Healthcare has become a political issue. Furthermore, computers, computers everywhere pump out more statistics than anyone can absorb, and the data is interpreted in scientific papers as well as op-eds and personal blogs. Long ago when I was first exposed to the mathematical maze of statistics, I concluded that if someone wants to make people think they have discovered truth, all he needs to do is feed them numbers. People are so impressed by numbers, and most people cannot do the math or the logic to confirm the accuracy of either the data or the interpretation.

Today, we are bombarded with numbers. One set of numbers tells us how many people smoke cigarettes. Another set tells us how many people die of lung cancer. Yet another set purports to tell us that there is a high correlation between smoking and dying of lung cancer. That is how it started. We are all exposed to statistics like this every day, and we are so accustomed to the mathematical stew that we don’t even question it. We don’t ask how the data was collected. We don’t ask how data was selected for analysis. We don’t ask why a particular analytical algorithm was chosen. Moreover, we don’t ask if the graph displayed as a result means anything at all. We assume that the graph is a true picture of something, and we believe what the reporters tell us it means.

For many years, as computers grew larger and more powerful, and as databases of statistics became more readily available and as we moved into the world of receiving what passes for news on a twenty-four-hour schedule, we have been fed statistics and analysis on two subjects: healthcare and tobacco. The statistics have told us that healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, and they have told us that large numbers of smokers become expensive patients during treatment for lung cancer and other conditions. The statistics that correlate smoking with lung cancer, and the statistics that correlate lung cancer with healthcare costs have met on the field of political discourse.

It all happened after the signing of the first Medicare bill in 1965. Prior to that time, wise heads in Congress rejected numerous attempts to involve the government in the provision of healthcare. The Constitution provides no hint that providing healthcare is a defined role for the federal government. Until 1965, the Constitutional standard prevailed, and healthcare was a matter to be managed by patients and their doctors. The passage of the Medicare Act of 1965 changed all that.

Without weighing the reader down with a history of Medicare, I will sum up its impact briefly. After Medicare came into existence, it immediately became clear that the government had no idea how to administer health insurance. When people realized that it was an inefficient mess, members of Congress put their heads together and made the situation worse, by crafting legislation which inserted the federal government into the administration of hospitals and clinics. The insurance industry watched what was happening and began to model its delivery and administration on what wasn’t working at all well for Medicare, because the insurance industry actually knew how to milk the healthcare cow. Today, Medicare is a complete scandal, and so is private insurance. Between Medicare and the insurance industry, healthcare costs have climbed to unbelievable numbers.

Enter the smoker. And the statistics that purport to correlate smoking and lung cancer. And the statistics for healthcare costs associated with lung cancer. And political discourse which says that a) healthcare is a fundamental human right, just like “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and b) if healthcare is a human right, then the government should provide it, and c) if the government provides it, then the government should be able to require people to be healthy. I have greatly oversimplified the progression of thought, but it is actually the case today that US citizens believe that the government has a right to prevent citizens from making unhealthy life choices, the government has a right to legislate the healthy choices people must make, and all this happens because people actually believe that they have a right to scorn people whose health costs society a lot of money.

The USA is becoming more and more socialist every day. It is truly bizarre that citizens who believe costs of anything are too high for them to pay believe that the government should provide that thing for them at no charge. Where do they think the government will get the money to provide the free service? Government is not like a business. Government does not produce a product or service which it can sell at a profit. The only way government can acquire money to give me something is to take money away from me in the form of taxes.

The socialist agenda is leading us toward a socialist state, and it is accomplishing this objective without changing the Constitution. A thinking person will ask how that can happen, and the answer is that people simply don’t question the idea of a caretaker government any more. When FDR introduced the New Deal during the Great Depression, most families had been hurt so badly that they welcomed anything that seemed like help. It sounded good – a chicken in every pot. FDR increased the size of the Supreme Court and then packed the court with socialist judges, and ever thereafter we contend with an interpretation of the Constitution which fundamentally changes it. Today, a very loose construction of the Constitution allows the government to intrude in our lives to a degree that John Adams and George Washington would have completely rejected. Today, a loose construction of the Constitution mandates social programs which a reasonable level of taxation cannot possibly pay for. Today, a loose construction of the Constitution has been translated into a social notion that it is okay for an employer to demonize an employee’s spouse for smoking.

This situation will only get worse if Obama is elected president. How ironic that he is a smoker! Maybe John McCain should run an ad that calculates the cost to taxpayers if a smoker is elected president and then gets lung cancer. I plan to vote for John McCain in the hope that his affiliation with the Republican party will eventually translate into an aversion to socialism. For now, he looks less like a socialist than Obama, and we can hope that if conservatives unite to elect McCain, they will be able to influence him to more conservative political choices.

In a New York Times article, “Unlike Others, US Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech,”[1] Adam Liptak hints that it might be time for the US to re-evaluate our first amendment rights. He discusses a case in Canada in which Muslims took issue with opinions of Islam expressed in a magazine. This case arose after the magazine published a “mocking and biting” article which argued “that the rise of Islam threatened Western values.” Two members of the Canadian Islamic Congress took the matter to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal where their complaint that it violated provincial laws against hate speech is currently being reviewed.

It might be a good time to look at the First Amendment to the Constitution again. What does it say? Why is it there? What ever made us think we needed this amendment anyway?

The First Amendment reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

When the Constitution was written in 1787, the delegates to the convention believed that the concept of the document included the right of citizens to engage in debate over issues. Such debate had enabled and empowered the Revolution and it continued to be important to citizens of all the states in the new country. However, as the proposed Constitution circulated among the states for ratification, many states expressed deep apprehension over the absence of specific protection for speech. There was such a ground swell of concern over this issue and several others that ratification of the Constitution was only achieved by virtue of an agreement that the first Congress would quickly provide protection for speech as part of a group of amendments popularly referred to as the Bill of Rights. Wise leaders rightly discerned that rights not specifically protected might well disappear in the muddle of history. The First Amendment provided that Congress could not pass any law abridging freedom of speech.

Currently, one of the most visible expressions of our right to free speech is talk radio. Around the country, AM radio stations offer many opportunities for people to talk about all sorts of things. The writers of the Constitution would be proud if they could see this phenomenon in action. Benjamin Franklin fervently advocated for mail service in this nation in order to achieve precisely what talk radio does so well. Franklin wanted the citizens to be able to talk with each other about their concerns and to communicate with the various officials and representatives they had elected to their government. He would have been ecstatic if he even imagined that one day private citizens would have the opportunity to speak to huge audiences using the power of talk radio.

I hear that there are people in Congress who don’t like talk radio. They think that people might have too much freedom of speech unless someone “reins in” talk radio. We must not let Congress institute restrictions on our freedom of speech by making rules for talk radio. As it exists today, talk radio owes nothing to anybody. No political force runs it, no political force limits it. We, the people, talk about everything, and sometimes we even talk about Congress. We need that freedom, and it is our Constitutional right. We, the people, must tell Congress to forget writing any laws that restrict our right to free speech. Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and George Washington are watching. We must stand strong and tell Congress our message: Don’t even think of trying to restrict our freedom of speech.

During the campaigns leading up to an election, candidates spend a lot of time and effort telling voters what they can expect after the election. Right now, John McCain and Barack Obama are busy explaining what they will do if elected. Sometimes they address problems we all agree on and sometimes they try to persuade us that we should recognize a problem they want to solve. At the most basic level, they want us to believe that in any situation they will do the right thing for the country. As voters, this is what most of us want. The trick is to know what the right thing is.

I recently learned two fifty-dollar words for some common-sense ideas. I came across them in an article about ethics.

The first word is teleological. In ethical situations, a teleological thinker will ask, what is the expected outcome of this choice? This person judges whether a decision is right or wrong entirely on the basis of the fallout. To do that requires that the person believe he knows what the fallout will be, which is a different problem. Teleological thinkers usually feel pretty certain that “if A” they can predict “then B.” This is a very common way of approaching ethical choices in political discourse.

The second word is deontological. Given an ethical choice, a deontological thinker will not worry about the outcome, because that person believes that morality is a choice among absolutes. Deontological thinkers believe that murder is wrong. Absolutely, unequivocally wrong. They may dispute the definition of the word murder in order to get around problems with situations such as self-defense and protection of innocent bystanders, but for true deontologists, if the question is the morality of murder, then the answer is that murder is wrong. Political discussions are pretty scornful of the idea of absolutes, especially moral absolutes.

One hot topic in politics that touches many people’s lives is abortion. Teleologists approach the question of abortion by asking whether the outcome of an abortion is good. They will ask if it is right to compel a woman to give birth to a baby when the woman does not want the baby. They wonder if a baby should even be born into a family that cannot or will not take care of it. The moral questions associated with conception do not enter into the discussion, because teleologists only concern themselves with the outcome. They won’t judge the wisdom of a person who carelessly or ignorantly or willfully becomes pregnant without a commitment to protect and care for the baby. A teleologist simply says that the decision to abort or not abort the pregnancy should be based entirely on the morality of the outcome. The proponents of “a woman’s right to choose” believe that a woman has a right to evaluate the impact of a birth and make her choice to continue or end the pregnancy on that basis. The position that there is a natural right to choose abortion is based on a teleological approach to the ethical choices associated with abortion.

There is an opposing viewpoint that asserts that from the moment of conception, a baby has the right to life. This point of view asserts that the absolute right to life trumps any evaluation of the outcome of a birth. A deontological thinker disregards the impact of a birth in a family that does not want the child. From the deontological point of view, a woman who is pregnant does not have a right to ask if she wants the baby; the baby’s life absolutely trumps any consideration of the impact of a baby in her life. In fact, because life has absolute priority, the life of the mother may not even be considered. As with teleological thinkers, some deontological thinkers define their terms in order to consider unique situations, but a strictly deontological viewpoint considers that life is an absolute value that transcends the worth of any other consideration.

Looking at the question of abortion this way may help us to imagine how these two distinct approaches to ethical questions will make it difficult for any candidate to assume that he knows the “right” solution to any of our national problems. Most political solutions to problems are quite obviously teleological. They deal with outcomes. Nothing is absolute. Both sides of an issue may be accommodated to some degree, but in a political solution, nobody gets to be completely whole. It is teleology that allows us to make any progress at all in political solutions.

The reason for that is that while there are many people who think of ethical problems as if there were an absolute right answer, there are usually many different perceptions of the absolute right answer. Using the subject of abortion as a sample of this problem, we can all recall more than one point of view on the side of “right to life” and more than one on the side of “a woman’s right to choose.” Some who believe in preserving “life” at all costs recognize that two lives are at risk in some pregnancies; they acknowledge that it is not always possible to save both the mother and the baby, and in their accommodations of this truth, they temporarily allow themselves to think teleologically. In such a case, even the most fervent absolutists will concede that someone must decide whether the outcome is better if the mother survives or if the baby survives. As for those who advocate freedom of choice, most of them recognize that repeated abortion is detrimental to a woman’s health and will advocate for the woman to make a choice about the desired outcome long before conception takes place. They won’t say that it is absolutely wrong for a woman to refuse to plan, but the whole push for sex education in schools grows out of their recognition that there really is a better outcome when conception is prevented than when it is aborted. In the public forum on the topic of abortion, it would be tough to strictly classify the people in the various camps as teleological or deontological, but understanding those terms helps to understand the way adherents participate in the discussion.

To recap, in a discussion of a national problem which must be resolved by government leaders, people picture solutions largely based on their own perception either that there is an absolute right thing to do or that the right thing to do depends on how we get to the right outcome. This is the reason that everyone can agree that a person sick with leukemia “needs” medical treatment, but there is a huge question and disagreement about whether that person has a “right” to medical treatment. Is healthcare a fundamental human right? Any individual will see the answer to that question within a personal frame of reference that decides right and wrong as either a teleological problem or a deontological problem.

There are other pressing questions in the public forum.

On the subject of petroleum:

Why is the price of gasoline rising so fast? Has something evil happened that produced this result or is it the natural consequence of market processes? Should government take some action to prevent gasoline prices from rising so high? Should oil companies be allowed to drill in ANWR? Would drilling in ANWR have a bad outcome for wildlife there? Should the outcomes for wildlife trump the outcomes for people? Is there any absolute right and wrong in the petroleum market?

On the war in Iraq:

Was the US right to invade Iraq? Does it any longer matter whether the US was right to invade Iraq? Was there an absolute moral imperative to invade Iraq? Does the outcome that eliminated Saddam Hussein as a threat to world peace have greater value than the perceptions of some Iraqis that we invaded and occupied their country for no reason? How is Iraq related to worldwide terrorism? Does it matter if Iraq harbored and supported terrorism? Is there a number of military casualties that is one too many? If so, have we passed that number? Does the number of casualties have any bearing on the moral rectitude of our campaign in Iraq? Is our campaign right for Iraq? For the US? For the world?

On the subject of the economy:

Is it true that the US is on the verge of a recession? Already in a recession? Headed for a disastrous depression? What is a recession? A depression? Should the government rescue homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages? Should the government rescue lenders who made loans to people who can’t pay? Is it good for the citizens if the government takes action to stimulate and manage the economy? Is the outcome good? Is there a morally absolute right thing for the government to do here?

All this conversation about the issues is completely disconnected from the Constitutional considerations. When we consider the Constitution as we consider the moral issues, the discussion becomes even more complex.

I have said all of this in order to say one more thing. People need to have sorted out their own thoughts on these subjects before they begin to evaluate the candidates. People need to know how they themselves approach moral, ethical and Constitutional questions before they try to evaluate the candidates. If a voter has no position on an issue, then the candidates run the conversation. That should not happen. When a candidate speaks, voters should already have a foundation on which to determine if the candidate is proposing solutions that are acceptable within moral, ethical and Constitutional boundaries. The voter must think before asking what the candidate thinks.

I have done this homework, and I will be voting for John McCain. I have concluded that even though I don’t agree with him on all the absolutes, his personal history and public life give me some hope that I will agree with his leadership more often than not. There is no other candidate who meets that standard. I consider that Obama has demonstrated profound emptiness of moral standards. He has repeatedly dropped positions and dumped associations as they became unpopular, not as he made reasoned moral choices. He advocates a completely socialist agenda for his actions if he is elected, an agenda in direct conflict with the concept of government written into our Constitution. I reject Obama completely. I will vote for John McCain. I recommend that you do the same.

In Ontario, the government decrees that cigarettes for sale in stores must be kept out of sight of customers. The product is legal, no one will be arrested if the product is sold, but whoever wants it must request it without needing to see it first. Ostensibly, the real target of the rule is children, because the government does not want children to be lured into smoking by seeing the product. Some people point out that the same government which enforces this oppressive rule runs liquor stores where a wide variety of attractive alcohol products are in plain sight, inviting children to observe adult shoppers and be enticed to want the same. Critics also point out that the government has no objection to magazine displays that include pornographic material easily seen by children. One Reuters reporter said that “advocates say the seemingly draconian measure will eventually work, and is too important to get bogged down by morality.”[1]

Morality is a word seldom spoken with respect in contemporary discourse. It is mentioned with scorn and distaste as something inconvenient and oppressive. The subject of abortion used to be a question of morality, but after abortion was reclassified as a fundamental human right, then we could talk about it endlessly without getting bogged down by morality. That change must surely be documented as a huge forward step for civilization.

Socialist governments seldom permit themselves to be bogged down by mere morality. The socialist government of the Soviet Union regularly arrested people who suffered the mental disease of dissent from the government position and sent them to facilities where they could be re-educated and made well from this disease. The fact that this government did not get bogged down in morality permitted it to avoid any feeling of shame for the fact that many of the “patients” died as a result of the therapy intended to return them to happy, obedient citizenship.

The socialist government of China doesn’t get bogged down by morality, either. Every Chinese family is limited to one legal child, and any other children are illegal. I think it is one of the supremely unfunny comedies of the day. Here is a socialist government telling healthy, productive, loving families that they may have only one legal child, while in our country, the socialists (often hiding behind the name of the Democrat Party) advocate that we permit people who have mental and physical disabilities to have as many children as they would like for the rest of us to support. In fact, our resident socialists are the ones who say that busy professionals should have the right to choose abortion rather than be bogged down with a baby, while people who are unable to support themselves because of mental or physical disability, or even because they don’t want to work, are free to bog down the rest of us with as many babies as they please. Socialists appear to prefer that people who want babies due to the notion that passing puberty is like passing the test to be an adult should have lots of children, while people are equally immature, but already pregnant, should abort healthy ones. Talk about bogged down. I don’t know how the socialists sort out all these policies. To me, they seem like an incredible rat’s nest. I yearn for the light of morality to be shined on this sort of thinking.

This is why I am very disturbed with my choices in this year’s presidential election. Someone told me last week that he could comfortably vote for either candidate, because they are so much alike. I fear that I cannot comfortably voter for either candidate, precisely because they are so much alike.

The cigarette situation in Ontario is a microcosm of socialist government we would all do well to study. The Constitution of the USA includes a Bill of Rights in which it is clearly stated that all powers not specifically ceded to the federal government in the Constitution remain with the states and the people. That concept is implicit in the original document, but many people felt that unless it was spelled out, power-hungry politicians would use the federal government as an excuse to oppress and rob the citizens. They thought that this amendment would mean that the federal government could not act outside the powers granted in the Constitution without another amendment that defined and limited that power.

Those who wisely foresaw the necessity of this amendment would be appalled to see how much power the citizens and the states have now ceded to the federal government without benefit of any Constitutional amendment. I’ll share just one example of this problem.

Every car is now manufactured with seat belts. Every state today has a law requiring that at least the driver must wear a seat belt. This is not a federal law; it is a state law. The federal government has no right to pass laws regulating traffic. Only states can do that. How is it that every state now has such a law?

It all started with the idea that it wasn’t fair for some states to receive less money from the government than others. It just wasn’t fair. Revenue had to be shared. A ground-breaking law was passed that pulled money from every state according to a formula that reflected its ability to pay, and all states received “equal” benefits back. It meant that states which could not afford their share of the costs for a federal highway could have that highway anyhow. All the states would contribute to a big pot of money. States with more money than they “needed” would receive less of it back, and states with less would get more of it so they could have their “fair share” of federal highways and other things. I am starting to hate the word “fair,” because every time I hear it, I know that somebody is figuring out a way to take what I have and give it to someone else.

After revenue-sharing was invented and deployed nationwide, it seemed good to some socialists in Congress to worry about the safety of drivers on the highways. They knew that they didn’t have the right to worry about state highways, city streets and back roads with no identity, but that didn’t stop them. They concluded that if everyone wore seat belts, then highway accident fatalities would be vastly reduced. Many states felt that personal safety was a personal matter, and many states felt that citizens had a right to decide for themselves if they wanted to use seat belts. The socialists in Congress resented this individual freedom to take a risk. They wanted every state to require every car to have seat belts and to require every person to use them. They did not believe that anyone had a right to accept this kind of personal risk. They remembered that every federal highway was paid for by funds in the revenue-sharing program. The federal government was paying for those highways, and they saw a way to enforce the behavior they desired by manipulating those funds which were supposed to be shared in a “fair” manner.

Only a confirmed conservative would believe that the strategy they came up with was unfair. After all, weren’t these seat belt advocates completely devoted to protecting all citizens, even if the citizens didn’t ask them to? The strategy was that Congress passed a bill that prohibited the distribution of highway funds to states without seat belt laws. In other words, they were going to go ahead and take money from all the states, but they were not going to give money back to states without a seat belt law. It is no surprise to anyone that the states lined up, saluted and passed seat belt laws.

This same strategy has been used over and over again. Money which never should have left the states is vacuumed up and dumped in the wastebin of Congress. There, the representatives and senators mull over all the ways they can exert power over states and citizens without any amendment to the Constitution, and without getting bogged down in morality, too, I might add. They exert the power by withholding money until they get what they want.

This strategy would not work if people had rejected the concept of revenue-sharing in the first place. That idea was sold as an act of “fairness.” It’s not fair that some states are rich and some are poor. We hear the same thing in the education arena. It’s not fair that some school districts are rich and some are poor. In the name of “fairness” the states and the citizens have been robbed time and time again. In the name of “fairness” our country is burdened with taxes on taxes, and our citizens are defrauded of their rights to liberty and personal freedom.

The two candidates for president in the election of 2008 are much too alike for me to be able to choose between them on the basis of their positions on the Constitution. They both speak the socialist Robin Hood mantra – steal from the rich to care for the poor. Both of them pose a danger to our country in my opinion. I must choose on some other basis.

Therefore, I will choose to vote for McCain. I want him to change, and I hope that wise leaders in the Republican Party will help him do that. I respect his personal history as a POW. Surviving that experience with a will to continue serving his country tells me a lot about the man. Not his politics, just the man. Since I can’t vote for the candidate who is consistent with my politics, I will vote for the candidate I respect. I'm actually looking for someone who has personal experience in the bog of morality. In that regard, I don’t know what to think of Obama. He hasn’t done anything yet. I can’t even guess if he has any character or personal strength. I do know that he disdains the Constitution.

I will vote for McCain. I hope that enough of us do that to elect him. Then I hope that McCain will see that his constituents want him to preserve and protect the Constitution. I don’t know anything else to hope for.