My colleague Dr. Anne Haight of the blog Haight Speech sent in a fascinating report of her rather unfortunate run-in with a Macroglossius lunarius incontinentis, or “Shy Peeing Moonbat:” Someone urinated on my car. I’m still pondering the motive for…

There’s a lot to dislike about the first Bush administration. Some of it stems from social conservatism. More of what I dislike stems from Bush’s tendency to give hand-jobs to the left instead of standing up for principles. That, and the way he spends taxpayer money like a drunken sailor.

But the fact remains that we are fighting a war. We didn’t start it. It’s been going on for some time, but only reached critical mass on 9/11. If we ignore this fact, or try to treat it as a law enforcement problem, or try to appease people whose most ardent goal is killing us and destroying our entire way of life, we will lose. And the consequences of that for human freedom would be far worse than anything either Bush or Kerry could do through domestic policy in the next four years.

When I hear people say that Bush is destroying our civil liberties, I wonder what they think will happen to our freedoms if an Islamicist terrorist organization detonates a nuclear device in New York harbor, or releases a chemical bomb in a densely populated urban area. I’ve looked down that road; it leads to pogroms, mass expulsions, ethnic cleansing and ultimately the potential of American-backed nuclear genocide. I don’t want that to happen. The United States would be left standing at the end in a geographical sense, but it wouldn’t bear much resemblance to the country I love.

Freedom needs to be defended, or it will go away. Bush’s likely domestic policies pose some threats to freedom. So do Kerry’s. But Kerry’s foreign policy will, in my opinion, lead to major setbacks in the war, with potentially disasterous consequences for freedom.

I am curious as to the non-evil alternative you seem to think exists. Nader and Nolan are both third-party no-hopers. Neither will be elected, and we both know it. Both seem to advocate some variant of a cut-and-run-and-then-people-will-like-us foreign policy, which is bullshit. Even voting for them as a symbolic protest sends the wrong message; the only third-party candidate I could consider voting for this cycle is one who runs to the right of Bush on the war. Right now everybody I’ve heard about is running to his left on this issue. (Frankly I wish Bush would run more to the right on the war. We’re more likely to lose by being too nice to our enemies than we are to lose by using too large a hammer.)

Anne finished her comment by saying “vote this November as if your life depended on it.” The ‘politically charged’ bumper sticker that’s going on my truck says exactly that, along with a picture of the WTC on fire. In a way I don’t give a damn who you vote for, I just want you to remember there’s a war on when you make your decision, and that you’re on the front line.

I have not observed the Bush administration to be as destructive (if at all) to the Bill of Rights as a lot of people seem to think he has been. I have no particular love for Ashcroft — I think he is an authoritarian asshole with a chip on his shoulder. But the effect of laws like the Patriot Act is, frankly, pretty reasonable if you read through the text of the law itself.

That aside, who I support in the Presidential election really comes down to one issue: the war. Whatever his other faults in economics and other domestic policies (and make no mistake: I do have problems with some of Bush’s policies), none of it matters if we lose the war on terror.

Whoever is in the White House, be it Democrat, Republican, or Green or whatever, must follow through on the war, and must be committed to it in the face of enemy opposition and domestic criticism. To falter in this war will be our doom.

Bush is the only candidate I think will do that. I do not trust Kerry or any of the other hopefuls to fully comprehend and pursue the principles and actions that are required for terrorists to be destroyed, and freedom brought to the Middle East and wherever else it is not yet emerged.

And yes, I realized that putting a sticker like that on my car might attract unpleasant attention. But the very fact that I would have to worry about that, when we all know that a Kerry sticker would not have provoked such disgusting vandalism, is a sign of a culture that I wish to change. I am glad to be a voice in a sea of anonymous vehicles who are afraid to declare their beliefs.

Vote November as if your life depends on it.

On a tangental note, I’m a little surprised that you would support a Bush administration, considering that he and his goons have been tearing the Bill of Rights to pieces hand over fist. I take it not much of Kyle’s libertarian ideology has rubbed off onto you? (Not that the Democrats were any better, but I’d never peg you as the type to choose between two evils, when a non-evil option is available.)

– TTK

Apparently the Barking Idiotarian Moonbat has some rather nasty habits….

Apparently the Barking Idiotarian Moonbat has some rather nasty habits….

As for the domain… Anne speaks true. Sometime in the mid-to-late 90’s I got to thinking that I really should grab a personal domain before they were all gone. Leftist.org was available, and a short english word (which were getting pretty rare in the domain space at the time). The utter inappropriateness of it relative to my sociopolitical beliefs was gravy. I think at one point the blog motto was “Owning leftists (or at least their domain name) since 1995.”

As to the domain, we own leftist.org. It was available back in the 90’s and Kyle snapped it up thinking “There’s gotta be something amusing I can do with this eventually”, and he was correct.

Hey where’d ya get this nifty little security code thing for the comments? Is it a plugin from mt-plugins.org?