Dennis Kucinich

Every so often, I come across a web site that lets me compare my views on various things to those of the candidates. Every time, my views synch up with those of Dennis Kucinich.

The first time that it happened, I thought it was a fluke. In fact, the first time that it happened that my views were held to be like his, I assumed that the site was rigged -- like those people who sign into polls and send ten thousand votes for Ron Paul. (I like Paul, but those people do him no favor.) But after it happened five or six times, I found myself thinking 'Well, if you and he are so closely linked, why don't you vote for him?' And the answer is that I don't even consider it because I assume he's got no chance at all. A little bit of it is because I don't know if he could do the job; saying the 'right thing' (by my lights) is one thing, but anyone can do that; heck, Bush did that. (No, I didn't vote for him.) Its something else again to be able to do the job. I just can't see how being a big city mayor and a Congressional Representative demonstrates ability. To be honest, if it were just a question of demonstrated ability, I'd vote for Richards.

That feeling for a need for demonstrated achievement is why I'm not in favor of Obama, incidentally. Clinton doesn't have a lot more, but she does have more. And, as I overheard someone say in a restaurant once, 'Can you imagine Bill Clinton back in the White House, but this time he has no responsibilities? Man, I want to be invited to that party.'

But as to attitudes and responsibilities.

I like when other countries like us; I like when they respect us. I know that sometimes respect and like are contradictory; they respect our military and economic power, but they don't particularly like us. Sometimes that dislike is a cultural thing, as when the French would have nothing to do with us over what, frankly, seemed like silly reasons to me. (And yes, I remember Freedom Fries. Silliness knows no borders.) And sometimes its based on more substantial things, and even if I don't agree, they have the right to their opinion. So its unAmerican to disagree with us -- so? So? One of the big sticking points right now is our involvement in Iraq, and, right behind that, our involvement in Iran, Afghanistan, and, sometimes it seems, half the countries in the world. Sometimes, the dislike shades over into active disrespect; they recognize that the military and economic power is still there, but its being used in a manner so egregiously bad, either actively or passively, they (almost) don't care if they tick us off or not. Its like the occasionally-circulated cartoon of the mouse giving the finger to the plunging hawk -- which cartoon I happen to like. Attitude isn't everything, but it counts for a lot.

Which brings me back to Kucinich. I just read a lengthy post on a website called Patriot Posts. Usually, I don't even read posts on sites with name like that, as I find that they pretty much telegraph their opinions right up front. But in this case, the post was about a speech given by Davy Crockett on the ability of the Congress to give money to funds of its own devising. Like a lot of people (I think), when I think of Davy Crockett, I think of Fess Parker; that Crockett was an actual person sometimes eludes my conscious awareness. Davy, I hardly knew ye. But I read the post, and it impressed me. In a nutshell, he said that the Constitution didn't give him or anyone else in Congress the right to take the money that was accumulated for the operation of the government and give it to anyone, no matter how deserving - widows, orphans, anything. Private philanthropy was fine and encouraged; public philanthropy was not. Frankly, I was surprised. I guess I knew that; I just wasn't aware of it. And in a world where we routinely send millions and billions of dollars to other countries or aid efforts in other places, I saw the disconnect between those actions and what the Constitution says.

Now, I don't think that the Constitution is the eternal document, able to foresee all. There's a heck of a lot of things that didn't come into their awareness, things that you simply have to interpret, interpolate, and make up out of whole cloth. I don't agree with Paul's assertion that everything has to be based on what the Constitution clearly says. But this seems like a fairly straightforward question, I thought. Does the Constitution allow the spending of our money for public philanthropy, here or abroad, or not?

I know that the actions in Iraq and places like that aren't questions of philanthropy. But for just a moment, I understood the attraction of Kucinich as regards government spending. Ron Paul, too. And once I admit the possibility that they might be right on some things, it becomes easier, more palatable, to look again at other things they want that I think are silly and ask 'Why do I think they're silly?' And, you know what? Every so often, they still are -- but every so often, they're not.