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10/31/2004 Archived Entry: "Why Vote for Bush?"

Posted by steve @ 06:14 PM EST [Link]

WHY VOTE FOR BUSH?: While libertarians are tearing themselves apart trying to figure out who to vote for -- Bush, Kerry or the actual Libertarian Party nominee Michael Badnarik -- Objectivists seem to be on the same page: Bush. Joseph Kellard is the latest Objectivist to endorse Bush.

For most Americans and me, the critical issue by far in this presidential election is the threat we face from our would-be terrorist killers. But how should we vote when both President Bush and Senator Kerry appear unfit to win the war against them?

While Bush has toppled two anti-American regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, he's significantly undercut the grounds needed to ultimately defeat the terrorists. Most reprehensibly, Bush has left untouched the world's top sponsor of terrorism, Iran, as that theocracy defiantly continues building nuclear weapons. And rather than crush enemy insurgents cornered in terrorist nests in Fallujah and Najaf, Bush accepted their calls for empty truces. Such inactions and appeasements only embolden our enemies. So contrary to the left, Bush is no "warmonger," nor is he the tenacious, "rock solid" commander-in-chief that the right paints him to be.

What distinguishes Bush, however, is his great rhetoric. Most importantly, by correctly calling Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil," he established the moral basis vital for victory: the terrorists are evil; America is good. Adding to this needed black-and-white foundation, Bush told other nations they are either with us or with the terrorists. He vowed to make no distinction between individual terrorists and the states that support them, to end states that sponsor terrorism, and to strike those states before they strike us. He also understands that dictatorships breed terrorists, and proposes a long-range "forward strategy of freedom" to replace Mid East tyrannies with representative governments.

Read on.