More coffee, more conservatives: Coday and Widener
News, Political ·Sunday March 7, 2010 @ 18:54 EST (link)
Couple more meetings with the Puget Sound Conservative Underground thus Sunday afternoon and last, with a couple US senate candidates that are hoping to run against incumbent liberal Patty Murray. Liberal in the "progressive" sense, not the liberty sense—heck, "liberal" and "progressive" are both euphemisms: what I meant was liberal in the "rob you blind" sense, not the classical liberal (libertarian) sense.
Last week, Art Coday (February 28), at the Woodinville library. He was well-spoken; he's a doctor; he came across as very polished and willing to stand up for his beliefs. On the topic of abortion, he made no bones about being pro-life, believing life begins at conception, and justifying laws against abortion as protection the right to life of the child, drawing from the Declaration of Independence. (I'm aware there are attempts at counter-arguments, such as Thompson's violinist, but his position makes sense.) He misstated Roe v. Wade, though; it does allow states to restrict abortions after the second trimester.
I got to talk to him one on one after the group discussion and he is very much pro Second Amendment (I buttonholed him on his statement that the state should not be able to "unduly" restrict the right to bear arms and asked him what that would mean; his example of a courthouse where sufficient security is generally in place to protect people was at least cogent, even though, of course, those people are generally not protecting visitors per se, but rather judges and perhaps prosecutors, and have no duty to protect individuals, and individuals may need protection from unarmed violence or those that manage to illegally get weapons in.)
He was also open to libertarian idea such as abolishing government departments and small government, but anyone will say that. I think he'd be a good choice, but unfortunately Widener probably is easier to get elected.
Yellow-haired plump lady was there droning on and on; she seems to be a bit of a fixture; she can't get out a short direct question to save her life. There also appeared to be someone who was perhaps a union plant there? And we even had an entitlement-minded older gentleman whose only concern was "his" Social Security. I suppose it's a conservative gathering, not libertarian, so he's not really out of place. Art fell into the trap of these entitlements being what "we" have promised; I never promised any such thing, and I don't owe him a dime. Government owes him his money back with interest perhaps, but no more than it owes all of us all of our taxes back, and if it's bankrupt, then everyone loses everything, or only gets a portion back (either a percentage or pay everyone so as to equalize what everyone loses; those that would lose less than the average get nothing back).
Today, Chris Widener. He seems to be a front runner in terms of electability; he believes the "tent" should be big enough to get 51%, since you can't make policy if you're not at the table. He talks a good talk—he'll vote down spending increases even if the bills have other good things in them (even if people claim those things are "for the children"); he would like to do big things like eliminating the Department of Education and the income tax but realizes that he's only one voice and doesn't want to make any "red meat" promises that he isn't sure he can keep.
Some negatives (learned through his web site and today) are that he will still fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and would pursue similar military adventurism and projection of power in the future—he certainly wouldn't close any overseas bases—which means there's a large area of spending that he's completely blind to and won't touch. He said Campaign for Liberty was one group he had talked to, but he misclassified the libertarian non-interventionist position as isolationist; either as an error or an intentional misrepresentation it's disconcerting.
With illegal immigration, he talks a good talk but doesn't say what he'll do once the border is secured and we know who's here. His site says an ominous, ambiguous "deal in an effective manner with the millions of illegal immigrants we already have here"—if he meant deport them, then he'd say that; "deal with" could mean anything from deportation (unlikely) to a "path to citizenship". I'd like to see a clearer statement there.
I would have liked to ask him what his philosophy of taxation was—what justifies taking money from people: is it just that the government has more guns (might makes right), some sort of social contract theory; in his view does voting imply that you endorse the entire system and agree to every result? However, part of his philosophy was to call on people only once (or so he said—he called on a few ladies more than once, but I suppose I can't blame him).
