(But I repeat myself….)
I’ve been watching with some amusement and some alarm the flap revolving around the Mark Foley “Hey young man, would you like a drink/ice cream/gay sex?” thing. Amusement from:
- Watching politicians twisting themselves into pretzels to distance themselves from him
- Watching politicians vying to outdo each other with “We told our leaders he was a pervert, but NO-O-O!” sound bites
- Watching the Democrats nearly pissing themselves in excitement as they think that they finally have something they can use to drag themselves back into power
- Watching the political punditry opine on the subject, knowing full well they have no earthly idea what they’re talking about
The alarm comes from the idea that the Democrats may actually have something that they can use to drag themselves back into power. For gun owners and fans of small government, this is scarey. (Of course, fans of small government aren’t exactly entranced by the Republicans, but I digress.)
Now, I want you to go read this from the Capitalist Lion, then come back here.
Mr. Lion has perhaps the best take on the entire nasty subject that I’ve seen so far. Yeah, Foley is a sleeze and an embarrassment to the Republicans. However, when faced with the fact that his misdeeds were about to become very public, he did the right thing, for whatever reason, and resigned. That doesn’t pardon him for what he did, but as Mr. Lion correctly points out, it does show a major difference between Republicans and Democrats.
As gun owners, we don’t have the luxury of being able to “send a message” to the Republicans by staying home in a month. The last time we sent that message (the 1992 elections), we got Bill Clinton. If we stay home, we may just get a Democrat-controlled Congress. Can you say “Son of Assault Weapon Ban”? How about “President Hillary Clinton”? Yeah, I thought so. Doesn’t exactly sound good, does it?
Do like I’m going to do, go out, take your nose firmly in hand, and vote for the Republican louses. The alternative is worse.
Now, when do we get someone we can vote for, rather than against?
(EDIT: Vox Day has another opinion. I can see his point, but I can’t quite bring myself to agree with him. It feels like cutting my nose off to spite my face.)