I listened to the president’s Inaugural address today, and I came to realize why I’ve never trusted his intentions. I agree with the goals he is trying to accomplish: spreading freedom abroad, strengthening (financially) social security, expanding medicare to include drug coverage, lowering the threat of international terrorism, and improving the economy. However, on every single one of those issues, I believe that the means he has taken to those ends will lead us to very different ends: empowering dictators, destroying social security, bankrupting medicare, exploding the threat of terrorism, and shifting the weight of taxes from those whom society has benefitted the most to those it has given the least.
Let me make this clear: we agree on the goals, but I so greatly mistrust the means that he is advocating that I cannot possibly trust him. It is said that two rational people can look at the same set of facts and draw different conclusions. I agree. I look at the set of facts about how our president is acting and draw the conclusion that his goals are truly different than he says they are. He is trying to destroy social security and eliminate medicare (ending the entitlements the conservatives say) by creating a financial crisis that makes the programs unsupportable. I do think he is trying to spread freedom, but I think that doing so militarily rather than economically will ultimately weaken our nation, and upset the peace of the entire world.
How amazing it must be to see your job as carrying the banner of heaven and freedom to the entire world. The only problem is that 49% of his own country, and the vast majority of the rest of the world, sees a man dangerously playing an ideological game that is far more likely to create suffering and poverty than prosperity and happiness.
But, for now I will give him my tentative support just as I would a new candidate whom I did not vote for. Very soon I am sure that his actions will decide whether that support turns into acceptance or anger.
