It's kind of odd, even counter-intuitive, for a retired teacher to speak disparagingly of "liberal, nanny-government," and to sneer at "entitlements." But that's just what one of my fellow columnists did recently when he wrote a column in support of the Republican standard bearer, John McCain.Let's start with the dismissive and sexist phrase he used to describe a possible Hillary Clinton administration. "Nanny-government," he called it. That's the fashionable phrase among those people who like to think of themselves as conservatives, but it's odd coming from a former teacher because, as a retiree, my fellow columnist is enjoying his golden years only because of government run "entitlement" programs of the kind he finds so offensive and "liberal."
Besides, the very idea of public schooling is a "nanny" function. True conservatives would argue the government has no business involving itself in education. For that matter, what is the function of a military but to keep the kiddies safe from harm?
If that isn't a nanny function, I don't know what is. And what kind of namby-pamby people need government to build roads, or "secure the blessings of liberty," or any of those other parental or nanny functions the government engages in? If we were really conservative and self-reliant people, we'd build our own damn roads, and provide for our own common defense, each with our loaded squirrel rifle at the ready in case any terrorists came knockin' at our door.My fellow columnist worries about what he calls the excesses of "the bleeding hearts in the Democratic Party" but he completely overlooks the fact that the current nanny-in-chief has diverted most of that nanny money to wasteful military spending, with a budget for the Pentagon that is bigger than the defense budgets of all the rest of the world's nations combined.
And, we know, of course, that much of that money is wasted. Sometimes it just disappears. Under the "conservative" Republican administration that has run the national debt up so high, oversight of those billions has been pretty lackadaisical. But, in the view of that former teacher and fellow columnist, I guess it's better the military squander that dough than have it go to bleeding heart programs like the education of our children. After all, educated kids aren't easily recruited to military service at the grunt level.
How are we going to staff an all-volunteer army if our educational system is functioning well enough to give high school graduates the kinds of options that come with less risk and better pay than the military offers?
No, better that we have bad schools and bad roads that lead to those schools than risk making the efforts of military recruiters more difficult. My colleague in the column-scribbling biz thinks John McCain is "strong on defense" and a voice for fiscal health. But in the current climate, those two positions are mutually exclusive, unless the objective is the usual Republican agenda of cutting taxes on the wealthy, giving military contractors whatever they want, putting all that military spending on our national credit card for our kids to pay, trying to make up the difference by cutting social programs here at home, and eliminating lots of services that make the country a better place to live.
And, since McCain's policy in Iraq promises much more of what we've had under George W. Bush, it's a hard argument to say he's "strong on defense." The Iraq disaster has shredded our military, leaving our armed forces undermanned and stretched to the max. Military recruiters have lowered the bar on standards, and now roughly a third of new recruits lack even a high school diploma. Cannon fodder for endless wars.
The Bush years have also created many more jihadists throughout the world. The idea that people who would perpetuate Bush policies are "strong on defense" is laughable. Those policies have weakened us defensively, made us more vulnerable rather than less vulnerable, and all for the greater profit of Exxon/Mobil and other friends of Bush Republicans from Halliburton to Black Water. Strong on defense? I don't think so.
I share my fellow columnist's desire for fiscal responsibility, but here's Sen. McCain on maintaining American presence in Iraq: Question: "President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years."
McCain: "Make it a hundred. We've been in South Korea we've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea 50 years or so. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That's fine with me."
Currently, the U.S. is spending more than a billion dollars a day in Iraq, so if it's fiscal conservatism you're looking for, a 100-year occupation in Iraq isn't likely to bring us that promised conservative dividend, not to mention how unlikely it is that Americans can be in that dangerous and divided land for all those years to come without Americans getting "injured or harmed or wounded or killed."
So, when my fellow columnist writes that with McCain "a new Republican Party will be born - just in time," I just don't see what's new in it. More war. More deficits. Permanent tax cuts for the wealthy. More lobbyists being served, more neglect of the general need. And, given how all those "old" Republican policies have hurt working people, hurt the nation, hurt our prestige in the world, it's almost a certainty that the partisanship created by the Republican war of rich against poor will continue through a McCain administration.
But it's not likely John McCain will be elected to the nation's highest office. He promises nothing but more of the same. And the American people have had enough of all that waste, all that corruption, all that incompetence, all that manipulation of fear, and all that neglect of our needs and problems here at home.
