by Waldo News

Created on: January 18, 2007   Last Updated: March 19, 2008

I heard a mind-blowing statistic during a debate with an Obama supporter. This guy was a card-carrying member of the Obamafia, as I will take to calling them, and was trying to defend Obama's inexperience in Federal politics. The statistic he mentioned was this:

"In a post-election poll, only 15% of Americans approved of government."

Ignoring, for a moment, that he could not quantify the context of this statistic, what exactly does that mean when used in support of Barack Obama for President 2008? Since we have no choice, context was not provided, but to take this statistic on face for the purposes of the debate, how then does this poll support the candidacy of Barack Obama?

If only 15% of Americans approve of government, note it was not a specific aspect of government, just government, then what do the other 85% support? Since we know that in a bipartisan election system such as America's, if you are not voting for one side, then you are, de-facto, supporting the opposition; if these 85% of Americans are not voting in support of government, then what are they voting to support? The binary response to that would be, of course, non-government.

There are various extremes to non-government, and despite the article's title, there's really no way that one could vote in support of a pro-anarchy candidate. However, are these members in the Obamafia trumpeting the cause of "that government which governs best, governs least"? Do we vote for Obama because he will be the least "governing" President and head of government? If he does, then have we witnessed a fundamental shift in the ideologies of the two major political parties in the United States?

This, to me, is a major issue which will merit debate and close examination as the campaigns begin. I believe that, should Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination, that we will see a shift in small government rhetoric from the right to the left. The Republican party has embraced a neo-conservative agenda within the framework of which the government must get larger to support national security, border security, and "moral law". The left side of the debate, however, in rejection of these principles, will become the party of smaller government.

In essence, a vote for Obama is a vote for anarchy! Ok, more likely that statistic was just a talking point put forth with little or no thought about the implications, but it is something to think about.

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