Conservative Donnybrook

Responding to my previous post, Karl asks, “Should [the Republicans'] time-out occur for the next ten to twenty years? Because that’s what ceding 2-3 seats on the Supreme Court to Obama will accomplish.”

Well, for one thing, I was responding to the argument that Obama represents some kind of uniquely menacing threat to the American way of life, which seems to me silly, at least the “uniquely” part, and to the idea that Obama is any more of a socialist than McCain, who pays lip service to capitalism while supporting every imaginable government intervention in the economy, including the in-progress partial nationalization of the banking industry.

But to address Karl’s point, the issue of judges, I concede that this is the strongest (or only) possible argument in favor of electing McCain. But is he really all that likely to appoint textualists, originalists, strict constructionists, or what have you? Even if he is, will a heavily Democratic Senate really approve the vote to overturn Roe? And it seems that McCain, who delights in knifing conservatives in the back and famously despises those “agents of intolerance,” Christian conservatives, is far more interested in removing limits to executive power than rolling back the judiciary. This is especially so considering his legislative legacy, the unconstitutional McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. McCain appointing another Clarence Thomas would be a big surprise. McCain appointing a Sandra Day O’Connor and basking in the praise of the New York Times for his moderation and bipartisanship would not be surprising at all.

It just seems to me that for a conservative searching for a reason to support McCain, the judges issue is an awfully thin reed on which to base a vote for this awful candidate, especially when some time in the wilderness could be a real benefit for the Republican party, which could hardly get any worse. Against the slight possibility of McCain appointing “good” judges, weigh the fact that McCain is much more likely to get an amnesty for illegal immigrants through Congress than is Obama, and thus will push the accelerator to the floor with regard to mass immigration from developing nations, which will further gut the middle class and create (or augment) a vast, servile underclass in the United States and contribute to the fracturing our common culture.

See also the fact that McCain is somewhat more likely to start an unnecessary ideological war with nuclear-armed Russia, but I do realize that some around here regard that as a plus.

In sum, after tallying the “pro” and “con” columns, I have concluded that the two major candidates are roughly equally likely to destroy the world.