Tuesday, September 15, 2009

There's No Other Explanation ...

For as long as I have considered such things, I have believed as Thomas Jefferson said, “That government governs best that governs least.”

When I was 14 years old, I sent two weeks allowance to Ronald Reagan’s unsuccessful 1976 presidential campaign to wrest the Republican nomination from President Gerald Ford. In high school, during Mrs. Sellers’s weekly current events discussion, (at the height of the farmers' protest movement for 100% price supports) I argued that farmers had no more right to government subsidies than any other business person.

During my college years, I debated with political science professors that we should eliminate about 75% of the federal government. In speech class, I spoke in favor of right-to-work laws (in opposition to unionization) and against the government-sponsored pyramid scheme known as Social Security. Also while in college, one of my greatest Eureka moments came when I read economist Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, perhaps the best defense of limited government and the free market ever written.

As a newspaper columnist in the mid 1980s I was a consistent libertarian-conservative, espousing a limited government approach to every issue: in favor of legalizing marijuana, pro-gun rights, against mandatory seat-belts, defending private property rights, against minimum wage laws, supporting tax-cuts … and always an ardent supporter of the First Amendment.

My views haven’t changed much. An 8x10 framed color photo of Ronald Reagan hangs on the wall over my desk. I still subscribe to Reason magazine (since about 1984) which carries the slogan, “Free minds and free markets.” I’m a registered Republican and have been for more 25 years. During that time I’ve voted for Libertarian candidates a few times, but only ONE Democrat. (Gladys Chapman, the supervisor of elections in Bay County, FL always spoke slowly in concise, grammatically correct sentences, and as a reporter I appreciated that.)

Before the 2008 presidential election, I took a quiz to see which candidate I should support. Out of all those men and Hillary (about 20 hopefuls there were, I think) Barack Obama was dead last. He and I saw eye to eye 8% of the time. Today, I heard that Obama called Kanye West a “jackass.” As far as I can tell, this is the first position he’s taken since becoming president that I agree with.

Yet apparently none of all that matters … not my political philosophy, my party affiliation, my understanding of economics or the lessons I’ve drawn from history.

No. You see, apparently the real reason I oppose Barack Obama’s agenda for America is because I’m a racist. For all the folks to the far left of sanity, no other reason will do.