Constitution Party of VA

Summary Arguments Against Voting For George W. Bush

by Mitch Turner

A briefer version of these points is available here.

"If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disbelieve, how can we afterwards defend our work? It is our task to raise a standard to which the wise and honest may repair, recognizing that the event is in the hands of God."
-- George Washington, 1787

Myths On Why We Must Vote For Bush

Fear of Democrats: Not Biblical, since fear is never an excuse for supporting evil. Fear of the future by a Christian denies God is sovereign. And we survived Clinton just fine, didn't we? In fact, unrestrained by an opposing Congress, Bush has done much worse things than Clinton.

A Godly candidate can't win: By this attitude we should not have ever fought the War for Independence. We stood no chance. Important victories in history have been won by faithful people with God on their side, not "moderates" compromising values to win the support of the "undecided." From Joshua to Washington, the battle is the Lord's and we are just supposed to do what is right. God decides who our leaders are, again, we must vote for Godly candidates.

Fear of the judges John Kerry will appoint: See above on fear. And if you really think Bush will appoint truly conservative judges, you are willfully avoiding the evidence of history and Bush's positions. See below on judges.

There is no perfect candidate: An excuse for voting for the lesser of two evils (which, of course, is still evil). This position is a straw man. Yes, there is no perfect candidate. But should we support someone on the wrong side of all the major issues? A man who tolerates murder and public acceptance of homosexual rights, violates his oath of office routinely, sends our women to fight our battles, and spends hundreds of billions of dollars that we don't have on unconstitutional boondoggles? We are not debating perfect, or slightly less than perfect (which is the straw man Christians set up). We are debating evil, or not evil. The Christian must vote for "not evil."

Defense of Life

Bush does not believe babies have a right to life. His position is that depending on who the father is (he supports abortion in cases of rape, incest), there is a preference the baby be allowed to live. That is not a right to life. His Attorney General, Ashcroft, promised in his confirmation hearings to uphold Roe v. Wade, an unlawful decision that is not the law of the land, since courts don't make laws.
Bush has presided over the death of more than 5 million babies. Well over 30 million have been murdered since Reagan was elected. Can you believe these numbers? Yet abortion is not even mentioned on Bush's campaign web site, rarely even given lip service. What would you think of a president who knew exactly what Hitler was doing to the Jews and did essentially nothing?
Bush has continued to send billions to Planned Parenthood, largest provider of abortions in the US, as well as to the UN, which supports abortion around the world.
"I am committed never again to cast a vote for a politician who would kill one innocent baby... Never will I use my influence, however remotely, to support the shedding of their blood." Dr. James Dobson, March 1995 FOTF Newsletter. If you accept this standard, you cannot vote for Bush.
As a reminder, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban passed Congress twice, and was vetoed by Clinton. Had the GOP simply held their Senators to the party line on this most egregious of evil practices, Clinton's veto would have been overridden. Instead, 5 GOP Senators upheld the vetoes.

Defense of the Acknowledgement of God

AL Chief Justice Roy Moore was thrown out of office and the 10 Commandments removed from the state courthouse, despite a GOP State Attorney General, a GOP governor, a GOP Congress, a GOP US AG, and President Bush, all of whom did nothing to help Moore or actually helped kick him out. Bush rewarded AL AG Bill Pryor for leading the attack on Moore, with a Federal judgeship. Pryor would not even let Moore raise the question of whether the order to remove the 10 Commandments monument was a legal order. Pryor overrode centuries of legal history in holding that legal or not, an order must be followed.
The 7 GOP/2 Dem US Supreme Court refused to rule on whether the phrase "Under God" is Constitutional. Good thing we have GOP judges, right?
Bush has proclaimed that he worships the same god as the Muslims, who, according to him, follow a religion of peace.
Bush has allowed Gen. William Boykin to be hung out to dry for discussing his views on spiritual warfare in a church.

Oath of Office

Bush sent forces to attack a sovereign nation without a Declaration of War, required by the Constitution, even though there was no imminent threat of attack. Nor has he ever sought a Declaration of War.
Bush campaigned in 2000 against the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance bill, because it was not Constitutional. In office, knowing it violated the Free Speech guarantees of the Constitution, Bush signed it anyway, expecting the 7 Republican judges on the Supreme Court to overturn the law. Whether they did or didn't (they let it stand), Bush blatantly violated his oath of office by signing the bill.
This year Bush has responded to people working around the campaign finance law (loopholes we all knew they would find) by calling for further restrictions on free speech.
The number of unconstitutional programs that Bush has signed into law or authorized in the budget is far too long to list. The most blatant example is forcing taxpayers to pay for Seniors' prescription drugs, estimated to cost first $400 billion, then over half a trillion, and growing. There is no such authority in the Constitution.
Remember how we fought over the National Endowment for the Arts in the 80's? It's growing just fine under Bush, so we are forced to pay for the continued trashing of our own values. Bush has passed record spending, record deficits, and added debt that our descendents will be paying off for generations.
1996 GOP Platform: "We recognize that under the American Constitutional system, education is a state, local and family responsibility, not a federal organization... The Republican Congress rightly opposed attempts by the Department of Education to establish federal testing that would set the stage for a national curriculum." Bush now approves over $60 billion annually for a known unconstitutional intrusion into education, and he joined with Ted Kennedy to set national standards for schools along with more spending than ever before.
Bush supports the so-called Assault Weapons Ban, despite the clear language of the 2nd Amendment.
Bush's Patriot Act removes many of the protections of the Constitution from law-abiding citizens. If the government decides you are a "terrorist," you lose your rights. No trial -- the government just decides you are a terrorist.

Defense of the Nation

Bush has continued and expanded the use of women on the front lines of combat. Thanks to him, our mothers, sisters, and daughters are now being held hostage, blown up by RPGs, and cut down by AK-47s. The head of Selective Service (Draft Agency) issued a statement in Feb. 04 that Selective Service programs should be reworked to include women. Bush has not fired him or made any public correction.
Bush has continued the illegal Clinton policy of allowing homosexuals to continue to serve in the military. The policy, I repeat, violates the law, which says that homosexuality is not compatible with military service.
Easiest, fastest, best thing to protect us would be to secure the borders. Not only do they remain like Swiss cheese, no one has even been disciplined for approving the obviously fraudulent paperwork to allow the 9/11 hijackers in. Had the GOP Congress or Bush protected our borders, 9/11 would not have happened.
Instead of securing our borders, Bush has proposed an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens (he won't call it that). This has resulted in even more illegals trying to get in, and when caught they say they are coming for the amnesty.
The easiest, fastest, and best thing to do to secure airline travel would be to arm the pilots. Congress passed a law allowing a small number of pilots to carry guns, even though the vast majority of pilots want to be armed. Transportation Safety Agency, under Bush's authority, has stalled and made it almost impossible to qualify for the program, instead taking our nail clippers and intrusively searching Grannies and moms with toddlers to make sure there is no racial profiling.

Defense of Marriage

A few words in a few speeches supporting Federal Marriage Amendment (which is a bad idea but supposedly a test of whether one is against gay marriage), after it was clear it wasn't going to pass. Contrast Bush's tiny effort with his push to pass a Prescription Drugs bill. After much arm-twisting and campaign of threats, including middle-of-the-night calls by Bush, the GOP held open a vote for over 3 hours (unprecedented) until Bush got what he wanted. It's clear when Bush wants something, and it's also clear that Life and Marriage are not major concerns of his or the GOP's.
Even worse, a bill has been in Congress for years to remove the authority of Federal courts to decide cases on the definition of marriage (the Constitution explicitly gives this authority over the jurisdiction of the Federal courts to Congress). This law would prevent a Federal court from forcing other states to accept marriages from MA and WA. Where is the great GOP effort in defense of marriage? The GOP and Bush are MIA.
Remember that Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act in the face of an opposing Congress.

Judges

Number one reason given as to why Bush is better than Kerry is that Bush will appoint better judges. To believe this you must ignore history and the facts.

Bush refuses to promise to nominate only pro-life judges. He nominated pro-abortion judges as Governor of Texas.
Bush actively supported the re-election of PA Senator Arlen Specter, one of the 3 or 4 most liberal senators of either GOP or Dems on every issue. Thanks to Bush's support, and the support of supposedly pro-life PA Senator Rick Santorum, Specter beat a fairly conservative GOP Congressman, Pat Toomey, by only 12,000 out of over a million votes in the GOP Primary. Why is this important? Specter is in line to be the next Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which approves Judicial nominations before they are voted on by the full Senate. Specter got major name recognition by being the first GOP Senator to oppose Robert Bork, nominated by Reagan. Thanks to Specter's example, other GOP Senators joined to vote down Bork. Bush actively tried (and will likely succeed) to ensure that no pro-life, conservative nomination will get out of the Committee. By the way, supporting Specter because he could win in PA is not a valid excuse, since Santorum has won twice state-wide.

Counting on the GOP to give us good judges is literally insane. All of the worst decisions in the last 40 years were by a US Supreme Court with a GOP majority. These are the most egregious:

Roe v. Wade (73): Court was 6 GOP, 3 Dems. 1 Dem was pro-life. 5 of the 6 GOP judges voted to create a right to abortion in a 7-2 decision.
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (92): Perfect case to overturn Roe. Came after Reagan and Bush (43) had sent 5 Justices to the USSC. Court was 8 GOP and 1 pro-life Dem. Had Reagan/Bush even bothered to appoint 4 pro-life judges, Roe would have been overturned. Instead, 5 GOP judges affirmed Roe (making it even harder to overturn) in a 5-4 decision.
Stenberg v. Carhart (2000): Court found Constitutional right to kill partially delivered babies in a 5-4 decision. Note: This case already provides the Court's opinion on Partial Birth Abortion. Bush is supposedly pro-life because he signed a law banning what the Court has already said is a "right." Court was 7 GOP and 2 Dems. 3 GOP Justices voted with Clinton's two appointees.
Lawrence v. Texas (03): Court found Constitutional right to practice sodomy. Court was 7 GOP and 2 Dems. 4 GOP Justices were on the 6-3 majority in a decision widely viewed as a precursor to gay marriage also being discovered to be a right. Justice Scalia's predictions were quickly proven correct as Mass. Supreme Court declared exactly that, and a lawsuit was filed in Utah to overturn anti-polygamy laws.
McConnell v. FEC (03): Court decided that Congress can prohibit political speech, despite the clear language of the First Amendment. You may recall that pornography, nude dancing, and flag burning have been found by the Supreme Court to be protected by that same Amendment. Court was 7 GOP and 2 Dems. 3 GOP Justices voted with Clinton's two appointees.

In Summary

There is much more detail that can be offered. I've tried to concisely put together the most important points about why we must put principle over pragmatism when we vote. Pragmatism has failed miserably, and we are much worse off as a nation than when conservatives elected Reagan in 1980. How many more millions of abortions, how far along the homosexual agenda will we go before you stop hoping the GOP will reform?

Further Reading

If this "bullet-format" article is not enough to convince you, here's a long article by Dr. Patrick Johnston with all the footnotes you could wish for.
Answers for Pragmatic Conservatives
Fears of the Pragmatic Voter
Christians Controlled by "Spirit of Fear"