An election day lament.

It is now election day and I’m about as enthusiastic as someone facing a root canal --- no, I take that back. I recently had a root canal and I prefer it to this year’s election. I can’t see any main inspiration for wanting to vote in the presidential election. Neither of the main candidates have anything to offer. The differences between them are small and insignificant.

As for the third party choices --- you call that a choice! Bob Barr has betrayed core libertarian values. The greatest accomplishment of his campaign was to split the Libertarian Party and buy off some of the low types who have managed to get into LP leadership positions. Barr is unlikely to reach 1% of the vote. If power corrupts, the LP proves that the mere illusion of power is sufficient to corrupt.

There may be a sprinkling of candidates, here or there, worth supporting. None in my vicinity.

If you are registered to vote in California then there is one good reason to vote: to defeat the disgusting attempt of religious fanatics to impose their bigotry on the state constitution. Vote No on Proposition 8. In Arizona vote no on Prop 102 for the same reason. Both this vile propositions are being funded at the request of the Mormon Church’s leadership. In Florida vote against Amendment 2.

The one good thing is that by this time tomorrow night we should know, with some certainty that the long nightmare of George Bush is about to end. Infected with imperial tendencies the Bush administration has undermined Constitutional principles thoroughly. Unfortunately there is no reason to believe that a Democratic regime will reverse any major authoritarian measure pushed through by King George.

On the contrary, they will embrace these measures and create new measures stripping Americans of freedom. I wish I had good news. I don’t. I believe the United States is in a rapid decline and the measures being proposed by the two major parties are those which will only escalate the descent.

I have argued that George Bush has destroyed everything he was associated with -- even when that association was not legitimate. Bush destroyed the Republican Party leading to what I expect to be a Democratic landslide. Bush has undermined his own Christian beliefs and brought religion into disrepute. Bush has even destroyed free markets merely he was inaccurately associated with them. And George Bush has done more to kill Constitutional government and the American Republic than any other man who has infected the White House.

If that sounds pessimistic there is little I can do about that. I am pessimistic. One thing Mr. Bush destroyed, along with all these others, was my enthusiasm for the future.