John McCain’s speech
Bookworm on Sep 07 2008 at 11:19 am | Filed under: Barack Obama, John McCain
I finally got the chance last night to watch John McCain’s speech and I thought it was excellent. It was, in fact, exactly what I anticipated: pragmatic, straightforward, low on, and rich with a sense of love for America. Certain subjects fired him up, especially national security, about which he spoke with fluency and fervor. I actually only have two comments:
When McCain walked onto the stage, the first thing I noticed, as I always do when I see him stand alone on the stage, is that his body is slightly misshapen and that he walks with that funny, hesitant walk. Rather than being repulsed or feeling pity, I was moved. I know that modern politicians are supposed to be strong and straight, and there is that pop culture belief that the tallest man always wins. This man’s body, however, is a living testament to his strength of character and to the sacrifices he made for this country. Obama stands tall and straight because men like McCain put their lives on the line for American freedom.
My other comment is about that Country First slogan. My husband, the liberal, and I both saw those signs for the first time when we watched Palin’s speech. He said that he found them “somewhat offensive.” He dropped the subject and I didn’t pursue it, but I assume he meant that the signs sounded jingoistic. How dare Americans put their country first, right?
Having watched the speech, though, I now understand what the signs mean: they mean that John McCain, burnished in the crucible of the Hanoi Hilton has always, and will always, put his country first. He’s not running to advance himself. He’s running because he believes that his political advance will benefit the country.
McCain’s willingness to be a servant rather than a God is also apparent in his Palin pick. Instead of shying away from a shining VP (which was Obama’s probably fatal error when he rejected Hillary), McCain is thrilled that, by picking Palin, he has put forward someone who will carry his country into the next generation. In other words, because he has subliminated himself to his nation’s needs, he didn’t let his ego get in the way.
And those are my comments. I also have to say that I was impressed by the biographical video the RNC prepared about McCain. It showed a life devoted to the service of this country, and a life lived with integrity. We all know McCain has made political errors, but he’s never run from a fight, and he’s always been driven by his overarching values, rather than by some political algorithm.
The McCain video was vastly different from the Obama life history video (the one even my husband thought was false and trite), which showed a man deeply devoted to himself and his own personal history. I present the two videos here, side by side:
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My other comment is about that Country First slogan. My husband, the liberal, and I both saw those signs for the first time when we watched Palin’s speech. He said that he found them “somewhat offensive.”
Democrats are designed, from birth, and inculcated with the knowledge of political indoctrination, to always shy away from any notion of putting their loyalty and trust in the nation first, rather than putting their loyalty and trust in gender factions, race factions, political factions, and family factions.
Democrats are the ultimate example of what tribalism looks like in a civilized and prosperous nation, Book.
They find every opportunity to attempt to split people up and pit them against each other in death matches, solely for the amusement and enjoyment of the Democrat party leadership and their faithful followers.
Joe BIden’s partition of Iraq is only one example of this reality, Book.
Having watched the speech, though, I now understand what the signs mean:
maybe I cheated but the first time I saw those signs, it was during Joe Lieberman’s speech. That automatically sort of implied to me it was about not putting your damn Democrat party first when the principles of the nation calls for you to choose.
I think a lot of people (mainly liberals) are implicitly reasoning as follows:
“Hitler used patriotism to rally support for his policies. Therefore, patriotism is dangerous and bad.”
This is analogous to reasoning that, since Nazi Germany used trains to carry people to concentration camps, railroads must be a bad thing.
A nation without patriotism is like a ship in which the crewmembers are not concerned about the well-being of the ship as a whole, but are entirely caught up in the rights and privileges of the particular group of which they are a member: the engine room gang, the deck force, the stewards, etc. Such a voyage would be unlikely to end well.
You have to read “Liberal Facism” to get a good idea of what’s going on…
Aside from the historical development of the various concepts, he defines the differences between facism, socialism and communism. Communism is considered the ideal end form of government, and is global in nature. Socialism is a mid-point on the way to communism, and facism is socialist government with nationalistic characteristics. In a way, all are deceptive in that no matter what they say about the government being by the people, there’s always a head person. You might not call him a king, but he’s certainly a dictator whether there’s a velvet glove or not. The Dems today are socialistic, and if they supported a strong nationalism, could be truly called facists. Since they are definitely inclined towards the global view, they’re actually closer to communism.
Kruschev’s government planted the seeds…they have sprung forth and borne fruit.
http://www.youtube.com/user/gopconvention2008
Check that site for all the videos of the speeches, Book.
McCain’s experiences in Hanoi also means his position on torture is both inflexible and unreasonable.
The United States does not torture or even interrogate people in order to provide us with propaganda material to support our war on defenseless South Vietnamese villages, after all.
When he says that one must fight for America because America and her soldiers are fighting for you, to free you, then what will he say to a United States military hobbled by a fragmented policy towards the interrogation and imprisoning of enemies?
We’ll fight for the comfort of America’s enemies because Americans don’t torture and use waterboarding? Americans use waterboarding all the time on Special Forces candidates in the SERE.
Yeah, we’ll fight to ensure that people who kill women and children on the battlefield gets access to luxuries and benefits no patriotic America that gets captured ever will acquire. That’s fighting for America and her defenders, alright.
It is irrational. But unlike Obama’s beliefs, it is not changeable based upon political corruption and benefits.
McCain can’t change his position on torture even if he wanted to. It’d be like committing identity suicide.
Then there’s the aspect that if our enemies know that we will treat them well, regardless of what they do to us, they will have no reason to return captured Americans back to us unharmed, alive, or in one piece, Book.
That’s John McCain’s idea of protecting the people who fight for America?
That’s the same reasoning Israel uses. Palestinian execute and kill and slaughter Israelis. Israelis don’t execute captured Palestinians nor slaughter them. We release them free, in return for even the dead bodies of Israelis. We are better than our enemies because of this.
Not.
I generally don’t like this kind of video. But I love the deflation there between 00:26 and 00:40 seconds in. Though it picks up again with the hushed tones, it doesn’t come of as completely full of itself.
Who narrated the McCain video? The voice sounds familiar but I cannot place it.
Repeating the “change” mantra at the end of the McCain video is a little strange, considering McCain’s very close agreement with Bush on several key policies, ranging from the Iraq War to the economy, from immigration to foreign policy, from energy policy to tax policy. It kind of takes the meaning out of the term, don’t you think?
This isn’t the first example of false advertising either: his most recent ads championing his energy policy prominently show wind mills, yet John McCain voted against the bill that would extend the tax credits to help that industry reach economic scale–even though he has voted to extend tax credits to the oil industry, which already enjoys scale economies and doesn’t need such subsidation.
DG - I don’t think we’ve heard McCain-Palin’s energy policy details yet. I also don’t think that the “Change” people want is “100% 180-degrees from what Bush has done”.
Their “Change” mantra at the moment is more directed against how business is done in Congress and, if you haven’t noticed, this Democrat Congress’s approval rating is only a fraction that of Bush’s approval rating.
Congressional approval ratings are always lower than Presidential ones. It’s easier to hate a group than an individual, evidently. The election will help to determine what kind of change people want, but a ticket that wants to keep 90% or more of the current policies is hardly “change” in my book. I suspect in yours as well. A 10% “change” would occur even in the event that Bush had a third term. When is McCain going to present specifics on energy? His campaign ads say his policy is the right one for America, so he should have a policy already out there or that ad is still more disingenuous than I thought it was…
DG - as a military officer, McCain fully understands the importance of “timing”. Timing is everything and, so far, his timing has been impeccable.
I predict that we will see multiple calibrated surges of information at critical points in this campaign that will erode away at the competitors’ base. One that that I have already noted about the Obama-Biden campaign is that they have become “reactive” instead of “proactive”.
So all military officers understand timing, and all non-military people do not? Interesting generalization…