The Thirst for Freedom

So, is Barack Obama showing a bit of sense by keeping Gates as S of D?

Is this a message from him that in fact he is not going to rush troops out of Iraq?

That would be good and bad.

It would be bad because it would show that Barack Obama is willing to say one thing to get elected and then do another. Disgusting but not the first time a politician has done that.

It would be good because it would send the world a great message if the United States finished well in Iraq. It is possible to do so.

Stay until it’s done. That won’t take forever. Perhaps just a few more years.

From CNN.com:

Liberal blogger Chris Bowers of The Open Left says the message sent by the selection of Gates undermines Democrats.

“The message would be clear,” he writes in his blog. “Even Democrats agree that Democrats can’t run the military.”

Obama’s outspoken opposition to the Iraq war before he became a U.S. senator was one of the reasons he was embraced early in the presidential race by the anti-war faction of the Democratic Party’s base, so his apparent decision to keep a Bush adviser as defense secretary for at least a year has raised some eyebrows within that faction. [Read More]

The following is a comment that I wrote on a friend’s blog including some of the reasons why I voted for John McCain and not a third party in this election:

I voted for John McCain today. Out of faith and appropriate fear. My father, who was a construction worker who walked around on beams in very high places, taught me that there was a very good place for fear in life! God gave us fear, but we are not to be ruled by it.

I am not ruled by fear. Unfortunately, there is a lot to be afraid of in Barack Obama and in the Socialist like Democratic Party. Barack Obama poses a significantly greater threat to our liberty than McCain in almost any area. Religious Liberty, Abortion, Economics.

McCain is not perfect. But I will not vote for a third party in a presidential election as long as the system remains where it is, unless both candidates represent the same threat to liberty. In this case, they do not.

I suspect that some third party pushers are actually a bit frustrated and desperate, and thus come up with the “Chuck Baldwin is the only…” type stuff.

Chuck Baldwin is not our only hope. Alan Keyes is not our only hope. Ron Paul (Republican) was never our only hope, but even Ron Paul holds to his third party ideals (he is still a member of the libertarian party) while working to take over and influence one of the major parties. Ron Paul is a free man above and beyond the regular parties, and he is also a carefully strategic voice within them.

Consider these articles by Gary DeMar, who makes great arguments that it is more strategic to try and take over a major party than to go with a third party, at least at this time in history and at this place in our system.

http://www.americanvision.org/blog/?p=185
http://www.americanvision.org/blog/?p=191

I urge everyone to consider not voting third party, but consider getting behind McCain, praying like crazy, and working hard to nominate different options in the next primaries.