Well.. It is election time in the US! It has actually been surprisingly difficult to decide who I want to win. Both candidates are terrible. What it essentially comes down to is voting against socialism on the one hand or voting against authoritarianism based on a belief in magic on the other. Either way America gets screwed. I have decided that it may be in America's long term interest if Obama were to win a second term, but not because he's a good president; he's not. Obama has managed to grow the national debt from $9 trillion to $16 trillion, lose America's triple A credit rating, oversee a net loss of jobs over his presidency, tighten the links between D.C. and big corporations, increase protectionism, and expand detention without trial of US citizens. If he wins a second term, his socialism will continue to increase poverty (that's all socialism does) and economically damage the US. On the other hand, Mitt 'Magic Pants' Romney, stands for an increase in religious authoritarianism. The GOP promotes an unjustifiable disaster of a social policy full of irrational faith inspired prejudice. Their desire to restrict abortion alone will drive up the crime rates. Their faith based opposition to stem cell research and other science is terrible. A downward slide into their primitive morality could bring long term chaos. In addition to this, Romney too is a corporatist, he will likely spend lots of money and do little to shrink the debt. My hope therefore is that losing to a president as obviously economically destructive as Obama will make the GOP start to wake up and realise if they want to win and make America strong they will need to reverse the Christian Coalition's entryism and start taking libertarianism more seriously. Although I can imagine different scenarios (especially linked to Iran), hopefully a second term from Obama will make the GOP realise the cost of their desire for theocracy, and make the public once again realise the consistently destructive power of socialism. Another four years of Obama increasing the slavery of welfare and debt may be a difficult pill to swallow, but if it can change the political landscape for 2016, it might just be worth it. Either way, it's not likely to be a happy four years for the United States of America.
