This election should come as no surprise to many. The issues grind down to two starkly contrasting courses of action for America. Before us are the "two roads diverged in a yellow wood" described by Robert Frost. Although John Kerry may claim the contrary, his road is the easy way out. We apologize, back down, tighten our economy through good old protectionism, and increase the size of government programs in a way that pleases the most public opinion polls. Democratic politicians depend on one thing to spearhead these initiatives, and those are the politics of class warfare.
Although the tax cuts were broad, the fact that the rich also received one is played up to create animosity in the lower classes. These are the politics of Marxism 101, by duping the poor into government dependency before they have a chance to do it on their own. For Democrats to take power, it is necessary for them to portray Republicans as evil, selfish, capitalist people that somehow want to keep them in perpetual poverty for their own personal gain. Is Dick Cheney really some evil Bond villain that wants to enslave you in a salt mine and turn the world into a labyrinth of crisscrossing oil pipelines? I think we are all grown up enough to stop believing this childish rhetoric coming from "informed" sources like Michael Moore.
Why didn't the Communists win the Cold War, in that case? Their society was far more egalitarian than ours. The whole Soviet bloc had free health care and everyone was guaranteed a job. It would've been a Democrat's dreamland. People lived in equal drab tenement blocks but there weren't any ghettos or mansions, right? Why would people try to escape over that Berlin Wall? I mean, why they would want to escape to countries full of horrible capitalist imperialist bigots such as ourselves is beyond me.
The answer is, to seek the freedom to determine a destiny independent of government interference. In the year 2004, why do Democrats want to go back to what has failed? Why do they want to go back to the same arguments? In the face of being the most successful nation in the history of the planet responsible for one-third of the world's productivity, Democrats want to create a vision of two Americas at the time we should be most united against terrorism. We won the Cold War through economic freedom and a strong defense.
Democrats call an economy with only 5.4 percent unemployment economic ruin when, under Clinton in 1996, they called it economic success. Don't they realize what another terrorist attack would do to the world economy? All it would take is one attack on Los Angeles harbor to cripple 30% of our imports. Please, with all due respect; put your priorities in perspective! Do you elect a president that is proposing an outsourcing of our security to the international community, and has a long track record of voting against defense spending during our most desperate hour?
If you are a Republican, you say no very quickly. First and foremost, this president has proven that he will provide the security needed to protect his citizens regardless of his popularity. Ruling out the occasional dirty bomb or anthrax attack is usually a prudent step to keeping the economy stable. Second, by creating a pro-growth economy, the president has turned around a recession he inherited from Clinton in 2000 into a growing economy. Read the January 2004 report of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee for further information on how the tax cuts are helping our economic recovery from the tech bubble burst and Sept. 11. At the same time, Social Security should receive a much needed overhaul so we don't perpetuate a Depression-era system that is projected to give us a 1 percent or less return on our money and cause us to go bankrupt in 2018. President Bush will address this issue with innovative reforms, while the Democrats will address it with tax hikes and benefit cuts for our generation. Health care can and will be innovated by this president without Washington taking over through Health Savings Accounts, Tort Reform and respect for the dignity of human life. One must only look as far as Canada to realize the budgetary nightmares of a government that runs the healthcare system.
Instead of turning government into a one-stop shop for all of life's problems and manipulating the poor into our viewpoint, let's keep the country on track to economic recovery and increasing security. Unfortunately, this is a tough sell when you can easily blame all of life's problems on evil corporations, power structures, and everything except personal responsibility. Why don't we take the hard road? Let's take these terrorists down, expand economic liberty, optimize our social programs to get our government in the black and keep this nation's policies in line with principles of good sense, courage and personal integrity. "I shall be telling this with a sigh. Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference!" I urge my generation to stand up to the terrorists, the dictators, and support economic policies that encourage innovation over stagnation.
Tom Rippinger is a senior political science major. He supports President Bush and is the Co-President of the Notre Dame College Republicans. He can be contacted at trippin1@nd.edu.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
