A vote for Nader is a waste

Before readers of this column get the wrong idea, no — I’m
not stumping for Vice President Al Gore. I do think, however,
that a vote for Green Party nominee Ralph Nader — the man who is taking
votes from Gore — would truly be a vote wasted.

Not in the sense of electing one candidate over another. A Nader vote
would be wasted in the constitutional sense.

Ralph Nader — good guy, bad guy, or whatever you think of him — is
a socialist, pure and simple. That would be fine, except the
United States is a constitutional republic, not a socialist
state.

Nine-tenths of Nader’s policy ideas involve actions never reserved to
the federal government under the Constitution. In fact, Nader’s sole
constitutional policy measure has to do with the U.S. military — he
wants to eliminate (unilaterally, if necessary) our entire nuclear
arsenal.

Naturally, if any moronic president ever achieves unilateral
elimination of all American nuclear weapons, there won’t be a
Constitution to worry about anymore. That’s because such a president
won’t have a country left to govern. There will only be a huge,
smoldering, radioactive crater where the United States used to be, and
the last thing Americans would ever see would probably be a rocket label
that read, “Made in China.”

Unfair to Nader to characterize him this way? You be the judge.
Consider:

First, the Green Party nominee is hooked on this “living wage” kick.
He believes every American worker ought to make $10, $20 — hell, even
$50 — an hour, even though many of them aren’t worth 1 percent of that
as it is.

In order to effect these wages, a Nader administration would support
legislation to force private U.S. corporations and small
businesses to pay workers those amounts — even though there is not one
declaration in the Constitution that gives the federal government the
power to regulate private industry wages.

Second, Nader also wants complete government control over the
nation’s health-care system (sound familiar?). He believes — genuinely
— that all Americans deserve quality health care, which is noble
enough.

But he also believes every working American ought to be forced to pay
for such care — care that would, by the way, eat up nearly one-seventh
of the already gargantuan U.S. economy and, theoretically at least,
another seventh of a worker’s wages (that is, the seventh that is left
after the already-large tax burden).

Again, the problem with universal health care is that it is not
constitutional for the federal government to be in the
health-care business. Under Nader’s plan, there may be “universal care”
for a while, but it won’t be quality care and eventually won’t
even be affordable care. Case in point: Medicare and Medicaid.
Benefits continue to fall as the costs continue to rise.

Third, the Green Party itself derives its politics from a radically
leftist (read socialist) environmental agenda. Committed Greens
don’t believe Americans should own a car (let alone two or three of
them, especially if they are SUVs), don’t believe in any use of any land
for any reason other than to stare at birds and trees and think nuclear
power — the most efficient of all available power — is inherently
evil.

“Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part
of nature, not separate from nature,” says the Greens party platform on
“Ecological Wisdom.”

A Nader administration would embody all of these ideals. His platform
trumpets “democracy” and speaks swimmingly of creating “a free and
democratic society” (I thought we already had one), but each key Green
Party “value” — if implemented — would mean less freedom and
more government control over the activities of Americans in
virtually every aspect of life.

Uh, no thanks. None for me. Capitalism isn’t perfect because human
beings aren’t perfect. But capitalism is a heck of a lot better than any
economic alternative in the world. You want proof? Who has (and has
had) the world’s largest, most successful and fastest growing
economy?

That would be the United States.

Here’s another hint that voting for Nader is a bad thing: who’s he
stealing votes from? That would be Democrat Al Gore — which means Nader
converts more closely align themselves with socialist Democrats.

Casting a ballot for Nader would be a waste because it would be a
vote for a candidate that neither appreciates nor understands the proper
constitutional role of the federal government. It’s ironic that he uses
the freedoms inherent in our form of government to run a candidacy
diametrically opposed to it.