Who’s Right and Who’s Left?
(Cross posted at LiveJournal and Facebook)
I’m thinking of a politician. He has many detractors but is nonetheless an elected official who is very popular where he’s from. Some of his various political positions include opposition to gay marriage and support for a two-tiered health care system. He’s a man for whom religion is very important and talks openly about his faith. His foreign policy includes maintaining close ties with Israel and sending more troops to fight in Afghanistan.
Who am I thinking of? You’re thinking probably some real conservative figure, maybe Stockwell Day? Well you’re wrong. I’m thinking of Barack Obama. While he does have a lot of other opinions on various issues, many of which wouldn’t fit nicely into this little game we played, the fact of the matter is Mr. Obama isn’t nearly as left-wing as some people would like to believe. I laughed out loud the first time I heard him being called a “socialist.” If Mr. Obama is a socialist then Jack Layton must currently be planning a revolution of the proletariat.
Now does all this mean I now support Barack Obama for the presidency? Hell no. Am I going to care if he wins? Not really. Hopefully his health care system will stop some of the brain drain and our boys (and ladies) in Afghanistan could definitely use some backup. But all that is not as important as the two things that John McCain can bring. Everything else I could care less about, it’s these two things that matter to me most.
1. The North American Free Trade Agreement: Mr. Obama wants to “renegotiate” this, which sounds pretty dangerous to me. Freedom of trade is a fundamental economical right of the human existance. I’m not sure what I just said but it sounded good. Besides NAFTA, Canada currently has FTA’s in place with Israel, Chile, Costa Rica, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Peru. Negotiations are currently on going with several other Latin American countries and the European Union. However, given recent economic crises, countries are starting to behave more protectionist than usual. Adding to that the break down of the Doha round, we need to hold on to what we have.
2. Several U.S. Supreme Court justices are really old. Perhaps they will die soon. When that happens we can only hope and pray that some sensible justices are appointed who will put a stop to the slaughter of innocent children. And yes, Virginia, I am talking about abortion.