A Lot of Reasons I Won't Vote for Obama

By Burt Prelutsky
Friday, March 30, 2007

I have a friend who could very well be a speechwriter for Barack Obama. Although I consider her a liberal, I'm sure she regards herself as a moderate. To prove it, she makes a point of condemning politicians of both parties as partisan hacks. Actually, with precious few exceptions, I agree with her. However, she likes to say she wishes that those on the Left and those on the Right could put their differences aside and come together for the sake of the country. It sounds so nice and reasonable, just like the bilge coming out of one of Sen. Obama's love fests. The problem, of course, is that when it comes to the issues, there’s no way to work out a compromise.

Obama is currently in the business of trying to be all things to all people. He figures that so long as he avoids commenting on actual issues, Hillary Clinton will eventually remind the country why so many of us couldn't stand her when she was merely the most obnoxious First Lady we'd ever had. But the fact remains that he’s a liberal from a very liberal state and, if elected, would bring a left-wing mind-set to the White House.

As I told my friend, I don't think all liberals are bad people, but I can't say as much about their stand on the issues.

For instance, the liberal position is to nullify the Second Amendment, making it impossible for honest citizens to own guns.

Liberals have made a religion out of the junk science revolving around Global Warming, and made a god out of Al Gore, a man who just happens to own an alternative energy company.

Liberals believe in encouraging America's enemies by announcing timetables for withdrawal from war zones. They also believe in extending Geneva Convention protections to terrorists and Constitutional rights to illegal aliens.

Liberals argue in favor of bilingual education in spite of the fact that studies show that Latinos, so educated, rarely catch up to other foreign-born students who aren’t similarly patronized.

Liberals promote open borders, higher taxes and an end to capital punishment.

Liberals favor affirmative action while simultaneously insisting that they, unlike conservatives, are racially color-blind. But, then, they are also the folks who see nothing wrong with U.S. members of Congress forming a Black Caucus.

Liberals believe that activist Supreme Court judges should be encouraged to ignore the original intentions of the nation’s forefathers so long as the judges are advancing a left-wing agenda.

Liberals see nothing wrong with academic tyranny so long as it's their professors who are ruling the ivy-covered roost.

Liberals have stretched the First Amendment beyond all recognition. What it says in regards to the so-called separation of church and state is this: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It then goes on to proclaim freedom of the press and speech, and to acknowledge the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Only certifiably crazy people could interpret that to preclude schools from announcing Christmas vacation or a community from placing a 30-foot Christmas tree on the roof of its city hall.

Liberals believe that freedom of the press extends only to those newspapers, TV networks and radio stations, in lockstep with their beliefs. But let Internet websites, talk radio or Fox News, offer a viable alternative, and liberals start looking for ways to shut down the opposition. Apparently, it's only pornography they hate to see censored.

Liberals insist they're for religious tolerance, women's rights, democracy and intellectual freedom, but more often than not they side with the Arabs, who are for none of those things, and against Israel.

Liberals favor gay marriage, but refuse to say, if homosexuals are allowed to tie the knot, on what basis, if any, the state can deny the same right to consenting adults who just happen to be siblings, father and daughter, mother and son, or Pamela Sue Anderson and the Oakland Raiders.

Liberals want the U.N., not the U.S., to be the world's peacekeeper. But one only has to look at Darfur to see what a fine job the U.N. does of it. And how is it that the same liberals who can't bear the thought of American soldiers risking their lives in Iraq are so anxious to have them sent off to the Sudan?

Liberals are terribly concerned with respecting the rites and traditions of Muslims both here and in Guantanamo, but every holiday season happily attack the rites and traditions of American Christians.

Liberals have double standards where politicial scandals are concerned. Whereas Republicans lop the heads off their own (Tom DeLay, Mark Foley, Dan Crane, Trent Lott, Scooter Libby), even sometimes when the charges hardly warrant it, liberals have no problem giving leadership positions to such scoundrels as Ted Kennedy, William Jefferson, Robert Byrd, John Murtha, Gerry Studds and Barney Frank; or, for that matter, paying homage to the likes of Michael Moore and Jimmy Carter.

But perhaps there's no area in which their hypocrisy is on such blatant display as when it comes to abortions. Aside from the fact that the Supreme Court should never have heard Roe v. Wade in the first place -- abortion not being a Constitutional right -- liberals are simply loopy when it comes to this issue. Whether it's fighting for a woman's right to have a partial-birth abortion or abortions on demand for young teens, you can count on liberals being just plain wrong. It's sort of funny in a way because the same yahoos who insist that 18 and 19 year old men and women are too immature to enlist in the military seem to think 13-year-olds are up to having abortions without parental consultation.

If Barack Obama has a way to convince me that he's for the same things I am, fine. Otherwise, for all his sweet talk about building bridges, he strikes me as just another snake oil salesman trying to charisma his way into the Oval Office with a smile and a shoeshine.