manchicken here…

So, if you’re following this election and you’ve got any serious conservative–particularly Christian conservative–friends out there who like to vote Republican, then you’re going to hear them talking about Mike Huckabee.  Mike Huckabee seems to be the darling of the far-right, and I’m kinda shocked that people who fancy themselves compassionate are actually supporting this guy.  I’ve got some suspicions on the motives, though, so let’s discuss. Please also open another browser to Mike Huckabee’s site so that you can follow along if you haven’t just yet.

So, if you look at Huckabee’s site, he’s got an awful lot up there.  He actually repeats himself a number of times on his issues page, but half of that is because he’s actually touching on two sides of the same issue.  Let’s start with the biggest beef I have with the Arkansas Governor: “illegal” immigration.

Huckabee actually claims that “securing the border” is his first priority.  As we all heard recently, Mike Huckabee has joined Ron Paul in calling for an end to birth-right citizenship.  That, of course–being highly inflammatory and stupid–isn’t mentioned on his website.  What is mentioned on his site is equally horrific though.

Huckabee wants to discourage dual-citizenship.  For those of us–no, I’m not a dual citizen–who do come from different locales and have since naturalized, this is kinda crazy.  What possible motive could he have for doing something like this?  I suspect that Huckabee and his neo-con buddies only want to extend the warm embrace of citizenship to those who–though they wouldn’t deny the tax dollars of those who do not–buy into this warped sense of nationalism that they seem to be spewing all over the place.

Mike Huckabee wants to implement a “mandatory citizenship verification system” that employers must use before hiring people.  I don’t know if this includes contractors, small businesses, and the self-employed along with the regular businesses, but something like this has three key problems that I can see of.  The first, of course, being privacy.  What business does the government have knowing who you work for as long as you’re paying your taxes?  I’m very concerned about a system that gives the government more than a taxing interest in my employment.  This isn’t the Soviet Union, and this isn’t Cuba, so why should the government care about who I work for as long as I’m paying my taxes?

The second problem I have with this verification system is that it’s going to drive up the cost of doing business.  This is going to require employers–and maybe even those contracting out–to have the legal staff on hand to run these checks.  It’s also going to have penalties for those who don’t push papers properly.  Finally, this verification system will also lengthen the hiring process with potentially disastrous consequences.  Anybody who has ever been laid off–yes, I know this one rather well as a former dot-com refugee–knows, getting another job quickly is very important after being kicked to the curb.  A longer hiring process means a longer period of time before you can get your paycheck flowing again, which means late payments, missed payments, and possible consequences of such financial problems.  But I guess that rich folks who are so far removed from the concerns of the common man like Mike Huckabee can’t be bothered to worry about this.  His elitist immigration policy is more important than the ability of millions to pay their bills and feed their families (if that was too subtle, yes, I did just get emotionally involved and call Mike Huckabee an “asshole” in a round-about way).

Mike Huckabee wants to send all undocumented immigrants back to their “home country” before they can even be eligible for re-entry into the United States.  Is this guy on crack?  How are a bunch of folks going to go back to their home country–presumably Mexico or somewhere in Middle or South America–if they can’t get jobs?  Hold up, no, Huckabee wants the American tax-payer to foot the bill for this abortion of an immigration policy.  Can you fathom the cost of this sort of emigration?  We’re talking about the mass exodus of tens of millions of people.  And what do we do, just drop them all off in Mexico and call it even?  What about the Columbian and Salvadoran undocumented immigrants?  Gosh, that’s just insane, we’re talking about billions of dollars here.  All of this money could be used for health care, education, or even to fund continued hostilities in Iraq.

Mike Huckabee also wants to build a fence with a sophisticated surveillance system.  Here’s the question, who the hell is going to watch these cameras?  I suppose this might be how he wants to fix the economic trouble that’s going on.  Create jobs by harming innocent people who are just trying to figure out how to feed their families.

Then, there’s this whole matter of abortion and gay marriage constitutional amendments.  I understand the socially conservative agenda.  I’m rather socially conservative myself, but I wouldn’t force these changes on an unwilling country.  Abortion is a serious public health issue; like the war on drugs, abortion is going to continue whether or not it is legal.  If abortion is illegal, then it will be performed by shady doctors all over again.  I’d rather see a 14-year-old girl get an abortion and live long enough to learn from her mistakes than see her try to get an abortion and die of an infection because the doctor couldn’t have a real clinic or wasn’t qualified.  Gay marriage is something that I’m not particularly for myself, but I am not going to stick that into the constitution.  I don’t even think the government should care about my marriage at all.  Marriage makes no sense in the constitution, and the only reason to put it there is to force others to comply with the agenda of the authors and sponsors of the amendment.  I see this as a violation of the constitution.  The U.S. Constitution is not meant to be a vehicle for ideological coercion.

Now we move to why conservatives are flocking to Huckabee.  It’s no secret that Mr. Huckabee has clerical credentials, and he certainly doesn’t hide his faith on the campaign trail.  His faith is the first thing that he mentions at all of his speeches and in all of his press releases; it comes across as phony to me.  I don’t doubt his sincerity, or his faith, but I do think that it is wrong for Mike Huckabee to hijack his own faith in the same manner in which he accuses Iraqi insurgents of doing.

The President of the United States of America is not meant to be an ideological enforcer, he is meant to be the head of the executive branch.  Mike Huckabee is giving many misguided Christians the hope that the United States will somehow develop into a “Christian Nation” that forces God’s law onto the population.  Not only is this not going to happen, but it is just wrong.  Are we really going to regress to a time of the Spanish Inquisition again, is that what Christian conservative Republicans want?  Do we really want to forsake all compassion for our fellow man and pass laws that would force others to behave how we think God wants them to?  Do we want homosexuals to have to hide in fear?  What’s next, forcing all citizens to swear allegiance to this misguided “Christian Flag” in class as well as the U.S. flag?  This is going too far, and it’s wrong.  This behavior not only damages the cause of Christ, but it brings dishonor to God.

The bottom line is that Mike Huckabee will not  be a good president.  He wants to force his ideology on everybody else, and he wants to close the formerly free United States off from the rest of the world by closing borders completely and backing out of trade agreements.  I implore Christian Conservatives to select a candidate who will actually do a good job as commander-in-chief and not just a candidate who pays lip-service to their faith of choice.

Popularity: 7%

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 02:32 and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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