Clothespins for sale!

American conservative have political heartburn. We are forced once again to choose the lesser evil when we vote for president in November. Though this itself is not unusual in many election decisions, it is especially egregious this year because the Republican candidate eschews so many principles important to the conservative segment of the Republican Party and the Democrat opponent is as close to a socialist as we have had in over two hundred years. For this reason some conservatives have suggested sitting out this election to let the Democrats mess things up so badly that that Republicans will be a shoo-in two or four years.

But is this a good idea? Even just four years of such a president when combined with a congress that shares his beliefs may very well transform our country to such an extent that the changes made may be impossible to reverse.

If a Democrat president together with a Democrat congress appoint and approve liberal judges who serve for their lifetimes, the liberal Democrat legacy will continue for decades and long after any potential Republican resurgence. There are many examples throughout the country where such judges have over turned the will of a majority of voters on very skimpy grounds to advance a liberal agenda. In many cases liberal judges make law from the bench and over rule previous court decisions and legislative action. The power of the judiciary has increased far beyond the constitutional expectation of checks and balances among the three branches of government.

In another area of great importance federal government departments and presidential appointees of cabinet positions approved by a Democrat-controlled Senate would run the extensive array of government agencies and would be in charge of federal rule making. All government Departments: Health, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, Commerce, Labor, Defense, Treasury, Agriculture, Veteran Affairs, Interior, Education, Transportation, Housing, and the office of Attorney General, would be in Democrat hands. I didn’t mention the State Department because it is difficult to see how much difference there would be between the current Department of State and the one run by a Democrat appointee, and in any case it is likely it would reflect the policy set by the Democrat president. These departments exert enormous independent authority over lives of Americans and will execute the socialist agenda of the Democrat president.

In addition to these top positions, cabinet Secretaries appoint a myriad of secondary department leadership positions that actually handle day-to-day management and they also exert enormous power over people’s lives. Then there are the FTC, FCC, and the thousands of other federal agencies. The FCC alone has significant authority over radio and TV and could enact rules to stifle conservative access to the air ways; remember the "fairness doctrine"? How about the EPA? This agency will lead any global warming initiative passed by congress and signed by whoever is president because both the Democrat and Republican nominees support the idea of controlling carbon dioxide emissions and how we can run our cars and electric power plants.

If you think dealing with hurricane Katrina was expensive, consider that according to The Heritage Foundation, the economic damage of the Lieberman-Warner bill would equal the cost of "660 hurricanes -- 35 per year -- for two decades." The price tag of Lieberman-Warner is more than hundreds of hurricanes, and Democrat bureaucrats will have no trouble spending the Lieberman-Warner largess.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says Lieberman-Warner would effectively raise taxes on Americans by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years, and these policies would be in the hands of Democrat socialists under a Democrat president administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that the Lieberman-Warner bill would result in huge annual reductions of U.S. gross domestic product and that gas prices would increase by $0.53 per gallon in the near term to $1.40 per gallon later on, just due to the changes required by Lieberman-Warner and not considering other cost factors. These increases are on top of the over $4 per gallon price of gasoline we pay today.

Climatologist Patrick Michaels thinks Lieberman-Warner would have virtually no effect on the climate, perhaps 0.013 degrees (Celsius) of "prevented" warming.

Also, let’s not forget "Hillary care". If you remember the Hillary Clinton health-care plan of 1993, you will recall that under the façade of providing health care to everyone, it would have nationalized one-seventh of the American economy. The current version is really a universal health insurance scheme and is favored by the Democrat presidential nominee and congressional Democrats. Although the media may try to sell this bill as a solution to health care availability to all, it is actually an attempt to mandate by government how much and what kind of medical care we may have; a typical socialist dream.

Such is what is at stake in the November presidential election; do we hold our collective nose and vote for the ‘unconservative’ Republican, or do we risk sliding father down the socialist ramp to government control? I have clothespins for sale.