The Conscientious Conservative Blasts Barack

Me, Myself, and I -- very much "at home" in Beaver County, PA

A liberal reader of mine from eastern PA (I live in western PA) wrote me a long, mostly autobiographical e-mail asking why I -- living in a supposedly semi-distressed area of Beaver County -- believed generally in conservative principles. He (?) also asked me if I voted for GWB and Rick Santorum (our former Republican Senator). I replied at length, focusing mainly on why I oppose Obama and support McCain. In case you've been wondering about similar things, here's my reply:

Did I vote for GWB? Only twice. I think highly of him and his family.

Did I support Rick Santorum? I supported him when he ran the first time in 1994 against Harris Wofford, who was a man of extremely limited talents. I voted for him when he ran against Ron Klink (2000), but I always had problems with Santorum as a person.

I can support individuals of various views -- I might vote for Specter in the primary and general election -- but I do want to see in any candidate signs of real affection for our diverse and sometimes irritating fellow human beings. Over the years, I started to see less and less of that in Santorum (whom I know but not really well).

Senator Bob Casey: I don't believe he is a honest man. If he's so ardently pro-life, which I don't for a minute think he is, why did he support the most pro-abortion candidate in American history: Barack Obama? This is not an issue of whether you're pro-choice or pro-life, but rather a question of basic honesty. I didn't like the Santorum-Casey choice, and I wasn't at all surprised when the electorate sent Rick on his way. My wife despises Santorum.

I believe most people can rationalize endlessly when it comes to political choices. I don't do a lot of rationalizing. For example, do you believe Rev. Wright's views really came as a surprise to Barack Obama after he spent 20 years listening to Wright's views? If your answer is "no," then of course you would have trouble voting for Obama (although you might do so).

There, I just screwed up any serenity you might have about voting for Obama. (It's what I do.)

Beaver County: I believe its future over the next generation can be very bright. There is good public transportation in the country and back-and-forth from Pittsburgh. The people here are generally wonderful. I have Black neighbors on both sides of our (modest) house -- we live right across from Ambridge H.S. Everything I need (almost) is within walking distance. It surely isn't suburban, affluent, but for our purposes it's a great place to live.

Members of my family, including two daughters, are like the many people who voted in the Primary, and thus opted for Sen. Clinton. I voted for John McCain in the Republican Primary.

The folks here in small-town Beaver County are not the "bitter" people that Obama described as clinging to religion, guns, racism, and xenophobia. (Yes, those are the people whose votes he now covets.) Obama knows nothing about the people in Beaver County or the many similar counties in PA, OH, IN. His foreign policy adviser (Samantha Power), the one who called Hillary a "monster," also called the people of Ohio (I mean almost all of them) "obsessed." I don't know exactly what she meant, but I think it was a forerunner of the bitter comments.

Generally, I'd call the "race relations" here in this county very good. They are a whole lot better than what exists in Obama's Chicago area, which MLK described as the worst he ever saw.

Philosophically, my problem with liberalism is that it preaches collective responsibility while denying the existence of individual responsibility. It's a view that makes no sense. How are we to take care of others if we can't take care of ourselves?

People who absolutely can't take care of themselves should receive help from those who can provide it. My wife has been disabled since 1991, but she does a great job of taking care of herself -- with some assistance from me and a daughter and some from Social Security/Medicare.

Many years ago I had a girlfriend in my single days. She told my mother (an artist and writer), "Oh, Mrs. Maloney, Steve and I will always take care of you." My mother said, "C, I think I'd prefer to take care of myself." The girlfriend was something of a legendary Democratic political figure in the Pittsburgh area. We eventually parted ways.

I haven't answered all your questions, but I've tried to be as candid as I can. Of course, I've also been challenging your beliefs, which is the way I conduct my life. As I suggested earlier, several of the members of my immediate family voted either for Mrs. Clinton or Sen. Obama (in various primaries). The children are a very diverse group, and that's fine with me.

I spend a whole lot of my time "campaigning" (mostly online) for Senator McCain and others in whom I believe.

I very much fear an Obama presidency because of his weakness and self-absorption (he's already written TWO autobiographies). I read a while back that 20% of Democrats are rooting for the U.S. to lose the war in Iraq. I believe much of Obama's financial support comes from that group -- Moveon.org and Daily Kos types.

I am going to be writing this week about some of the comments in my "Black Conservatives" group. A big issue there is whether Obama's policies would help or hurt the Black community. I may send you one or two of the pieces I'll be using.

Sometimes policies designed to "help" people end up hurting them unintentionally. For example, the welfare policies of the Great Society ended up providing economic incentives for families to splt up. Thus, we now have twice as many single-mother Black families (percentage basis) as we did a generation ago. Obama alluded to this in his Father's Day speech but didn't seem to grasp exactly what had happened.

As bright as he appears sometimes, Obama is generally clueless about his own country.

As for me: To paraphrase Albert Camus' description of Sisyphus, "one must imagine Steve happy." I hope you and yours also are.

On my Hillary Supporters for McCain site, I wrote (Thurs.-Friiday column) about the many strengths of Hillary Clinton -- and contrasted them with the many weaknesses of Barack Obama. The battle for the Hillary Supporters is the highest stake game in contemporary politics.

Libertarians Should Support John McCain

Eric Dondero, an important writer and radio talk show host, asked me to write a piece on why libertarians -- believers in economic, social, and political liberty -- should back John McCain. He printed the piece yesterday on his blog: http://libertarianrepublican.blogspot.com/.

Why Libertarians Should Support John McCain

It appears likely the next President of the U.S. will be either John Sidney McCain or Barack Hussein Obama. As good a man as Bob Barr is, he will not become President in 2009 – or any other year.

When it comes down to actually voting, the vast majority of Libertarians will reject the more liberal candidate (Obama) – and vote for the more conservative one (McCain). That’s because Libertarians reject the liberal narrative and generally accept the conservative one.

George Will recently described the liberal narrative as portraying “most Americans [as] victims of this or that sinister elite or impersonal force – and are not content to cope with life’s complexities without government supervision.” http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2008/04/13/fooling_ourselves_into_entitlements

That nanny-state-narrative is completely at variance with the libertarian view of life.

What is the conservative narrative? Here’s how “Lexington,” a super writer for The Economist (and a libertarian) describes it: “American conservatives tend to believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed. This makes them more optimistic than liberals, more likely to feel in control of their lives and, therefore, happier.”

Conservative is not exactly the same thing as libertarian, but the two are compatible, as William F. Buckley, Jr. found 50-plus years ago when he staffed the National Review with a combination of economic libertarians and social conservatives. In contrast, liberalism, the friend of Big Government, generally is the polar opposite of libertarianism.

If you listen to Barack Obama (and Hillary Clinton) on the campaign trail, you hear some scary things. They portray “too many Americans’ as one step away from economic and social disaster. They see as people badly in need of major assistance – their assistance.

John McCain, imperfect as he may be, sees a very different America. It’s the same country whose liberties he was willing to give his life for in Viet Nam. We may not agree with him on every issue, but we can’t disagree that a love for liberty is at the central core of this man’s being.

Even Bill Clinton has said of McCain: “He’s given everything he has to his country – except his life.” President Clinton has never spoken truer words.

In contrast to McCain, Obama essentially portrays America as something resembling Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach,” where “ignorant armies clash by night.” As “Lexington describes Obama’s world-view, America is “a coalition of groups that define themselves as victims of social and economic forces, and . . . [where] its leaders encourage people to feel helpless and aggrieved . . .”

If Obama becomes President, we would become a society of “victims,” all of us clamoring for the government to bail us out of our misery. That would be a disaster not only for libertarians, but for all Americans.

I hope all libertarians do the right thing: voting for John McCain. Also, ask your friends and family members to do the same thing. The future of liberty in this society depends on free people standing up and supporting a man who has devoted his entire life to defending American values and liberties. John McCain is the right man for our cause.


Steve Maloney is a writer and political activist living in a small town near Pittsburgh, PA. He’d like to inform Senator Obama that he is not now – and never has been – “bitter.” He blogs at: http://stevemaloneygop.blogspot.com or http://camp2008victorya.blogspot.com/.

IF YOU'D LIKE TO DEMONSTRATE YOUR SUPPORT FOR JOHN MCCAIN, YOU CAN DO SO AT HIS WEB SITE: HTTP://JOHNMCCAIN.COM.