Is Obama Conservative?

2008-11-4 05:38:00

John C presents a couple articles supporting the idea that Obama is the real conservative in the race.

The first article is by Jeffry Hart who claims Obama is a conservative because he was against the war in Iraq. His strange reasoning is that the war was a wrong idea and since Obama is right that makes him conservative. Being right does not make anyone conservative or liberal.

Deciding to go to war is neither conservative or liberal as both have been involved in conflict in our nation's history. Traditionally the anti war people tend to favor the liberal or Democratic side though and Obama fits this liberal criteria.

The other article compares Bush and modern Republicans to the liberal Democratic Wilson administration. I see very little similarities, especially when you take into consideration the different circumstances of the times. Wilson was somewhat like FDR in that he rounded up questionable (in his mind) citizens and put them in prison camps. Wilson was probably most like Lyndon Johnson who ran on the promise to keep us out of war, but got us deeply into one and at the same time tried to build a great society.

Let's take a few conservative positions to see how Obama fares:

Abortion. Very liberal.

He has never voted on the side of right to life, even when the support is for the protection of aborted babies who live through the abortion experience.

Big government. Very liberal.

Obama definitely wants to expand the size and power of government.

Capitalism. Very liberal.

He wants to "share the wealth" of the prosperous. He wants to take business profits by force. A video has just been released where he tells of a plan to destroy the coal industry.

See: http://media.newsbusters.org/stories/hidden-audio-obama-tells-sf-chronicle-he-will-bankrupt-coal-industry.html?q=blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/11/02/hidden-audio-obama-tells-sf-chronicle-he-will-bankrupt-coal-industry

Defense. Very liberal.

He wants to cut the defense budge and use the savings to pay for social programs. Most scary of all he wants to withdraw funding for missile defense which could lead us to a nuclear holocaust.

He also wants to create a home security force that sounds strangely like Hitler's SS troops. What does he need this force for except to control citizens.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s

He speaks several times in his writings of the U.S. as being "Imperialist," which is a very liberal view.

Spending. Obama wants to liberally increase spending on social programs.
Environment. Obama take the ultra liberal stance of protecting environment even when it needs no protection, such as ANWAR.
The Constitution. He has said that we need to "break free" of its constraints and wants to appoint judges that are a thousand miles from the conservative view like Ginsberg.
Illegal Aliens. Very soft on enforcing the law here.

I can't think of any area where he is consistently conservative.

If one votes for Obama I think he should do so if he sees himself as quite liberal in the orthodox sense as any orthodox conservative is bound to be disappointed.

I don't expect to be disappointed in whoever becomes the next president as I have a pretty good idea of how each of them will govern.