Sunday, November 04, 2012

Britain Says about American Presidential Election. . . Wait, who cares what the British says?

By Douglas V. Gibbs

An article by Chris Parsons asks, when it comes to the election pitting Barack Obama against Mitt Romney, "Who would Britain vote for?"

For many readers, this would be intriguing.  It would be fascinating to see how our friends across the Atlantic Ocean would vote.

Surprise, surprise, the Brits would vote overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.

Why?

Compared to the United States, they are so steeped in socialism they wouldn't know how to get out of it if they could.

America is exceptional. The Founding Fathers purposely designed the American system of government to be nothing like what existed in Europe.  The founders also recognized the existence of the communist model, and feared it. It was not called communism, or socialism, back then. Samuel Adams called it a "Utopian scheme."

Samuel Adams said, “The Utopian schemes of leveling (re-distribution of the wealth) and a community of goods (central ownership of the means of production and distribution), are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional.“
The Founding Fathers were aware of these big government concepts because they existed in Europe.

The Jacobins in France embraced an idea called "The General Will." The General Will according to Jean Jacques Rousseau is a will not necessarily expressed by the general public in any way, but is presumed to be known by the ruling elite. No aspect of life is excluded from the control of the General Will. Whosoever refuses to obey the General Will must in that instance be restrained by the body politic, “forcing them to be free.”

Those believing in the General Will wished to dissolve the people into a homogenous mass, abolish decentralization, and remove representative institutions.

The Founding Fathers hated and feared the concept of the General Will, and designed the contract known as the U.S. Constitution with protecting the union against this kind of tyranny; hence, the existence of the Limiting Principles, State Sovereignty, Individual Rights, and a Separation of powers. In order for such a tyranny to dominate a governmental system such as ours, the wool would need to be pulled over the public’s eyes using rhetoric like “these laws are for the public good.”
This American kind of freedom we enjoy, and the unwillingness to give up liberty for the supposed safety of an elitist ruling elite, is not understood by Europeans. They understand big government, so of course they would vote for liberal leftists like Barack Obama long before a guy like Mitt Romney.

Writers like Chris Parsons asks questions like "Who would Britain vote for" because as a liberal he wants to convince you this is one of the closest presidential races in recent history, and Obama will probably pull it off. It is an attempt to dispirit republican voters, to make you think all is lost and decide to stay home.

Who cares who Britain, or any European nation, would vote for? We are not Europe, and we are not Europe for a reason.  In fact, this presidential election is kind of all about Europe - should we be more like Europe, or more like America?

If we want to flee from any idea of being like Europe, Romney is the obvious choice.

As for the closeness of this race? I don't think it is nearly as close as the pundits are making it out to be. In fact, I think this will be the largest margin of victory since Reagan in 1984.

The worldview means nothing. The opinion of Brits means nothing. In the end the whole thing comes down to the voters on November 6.  The Europeans can claim they would vote for Obama all they want, and the political talkers can argue about who will win and how close it will be all they want, but in the end, the only poll that matters, is the one where the next President of the United States will be decided - the voter's poll.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney: Who would Britain vote for? - Yahoo News

Hamilton's Curse by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

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