AFF Sentinel Vol.5#46

The majority of you live in rural America and small towns, involved in agriculture, falling into that category a certain senator denigrated as clinging to their guns and religion.

We aren't endorsing anyone but would pose some questions to ponder regarding how presidential candidates positions would affect agriculture.

The intensity of the presidential campaign has overshadowed the fact that presidents don't have the power to do some things both candidates are promising. Congress writes bills and appropriates money. But it is critical to remember that it is the president who helps set the agenda for the executive branch, who appoints 3,000 political positions in government agencies (including EPA, USDA, FDA), who nominates judges at both the appellate and Supreme Court levels and it is the president who wages war and wields -- or refuses - the veto pen.

Here are questions for our fellow bitter clingers:

-Are you concerned about the specter of a Pelosi, Reid & Obama avalanche - an entirely liberal government - transforming America into an EU country? Does the irony of the U.S. morphing into France while France passes by us unloading Euro-socialist methods disturb you?

-Do you want to give most of what your family has managed to accumulate over decades to Uncle Sam to redistribute to others through the Death Tax?

-Do you prefer the U.S. Constitution as it is? Obama has said Supreme Court nominees who say they are strict constructionists - that is - they believe in enforcing the letter of the Constitution, not an expanded, liberal view - would not be his choices. The Supreme Court is a battleground for private property rights, EPA and Endangered Species act enforcements critical to agriculture.

-Do you think the current Bill of Rights is enough for American citizens? Obama doesn't. He has called for a "Second Bill of Rights," guaranteeing every American a job, health care, a house, an education and a fair playing field for businesses and farmers (Ohio speech).

-Do you believe that labor unions are the answer to our economic future? Both Obama and the Democrats are dedicated to legislation establishing card check collections as a means of forcing more businesses into unionized workforces. The workingman's right to a secret ballot vote on unionization would disappear. Even liberal Sen. George McGovern has expressed dismay that America would destroy such a fundamental right. Obama notified Beef Northwest cattle feeders that he considers them unionized through a card check election and called for collective bargaining.

-Do you believe capitalism provides a system where each person has an incentive to improve things for himself and his family? Or do you believe that America's capitalist system is just a way to make a "virtue out of selfishness," as Obama claims. He wants to be the Chief Redistributor, the Spreader of Wealth, deciding who shall keep their earnings and get government checks and who shall have their earnings confiscated.

-Do you wish to keep your guns and ammunition? Obama has said he does not believe citizens should be allowed to own handguns and wants drastic tax increases on ammunition.

-Does agriculture's long-term prosperity partially depends on selling to the 96 percent of the world's population outside America? Obama wants to renegotiate NAFTA. He hews to the Democratic party line opposing free trade and favoring injecting activist environmental and union labor requirements into past and future free trade agreements.

-Should we have been drilling for oil and gas on the land and in waters all around the U.S.? When fuel prices hit their highs, Pelosi reiterated her opposition to drilling anywhere there was new oil in America. Now we learn Obama has promised bankrupt coal companies and "skyrocketing" electricity rates.

-Do you believe in the free market system and that we need to remove some of the big government, socialist trappings already in our system now? Or do you want as president someone whose book explains that in college he "sought out the Marxist professors;" whose formative years were shaped by Communist writer Frank Marshal Davis and who learned what a community activist was from a group trained by Saul Alinsky, the leftist aggressive organizer of urban Chicago?

-Do you want a president and a party committed to higher taxes? Obama's party has been the party of big government and higher taxes since FDR's New Deal. Obama had promised to raise every tax until the economy's slowdown. Then he promised tax increases to those who own companies and hire employees. His pledge to cut taxes for 95 percent of the people is patently impossible. His concession that maybe some tax increases should wait until the economy is stronger is tacit admission that higher taxes hurt economies.

Ponder these questions and friends involved in agriculture. Your future is at stake.

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