I Don't Heart Huckabee!

My registration as a Republican voter is a relic from a time when the Grand Old Party stood for liberty, freedom, self-determination, lower taxes, less government, and respect for the constitution. I rarely vote Republican anymore. I only vote Democratic when the Republican is a lying, two-faced power-whore like Mike Dewine who needs to be sent packing. Though my parents were Democrats, I was a fire-breathing Republican from the time I turned 18. I volunteered to help Congressman Tom Kindness' campaign in 1980. Ronald Reagan got my first two votes for President, the only two I ever cast without holding my nose.

Which brings us to the woeful group of front runners in this year's Republican primary. Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee have already said or done at least one thing that precludes my voting for them under any circumstances, even if it looks like Hillary is going to win. (It is important to remember that we never would have gotten Ronald Reagan if not for four dreadful years of Jimmy Carter.)

But as Duncan Hunter is excluded from the New Hampshire debate so that Fox News can appear "fair and balanced", I feel a special resentment in my heart for the only candidate that can be soundly beaten by Hillary Clinton: Mike Huckabee. One week before the election, Hillary's goons are going to drag out video of the Huckster saying we can take this nation back for Christ. There are hundreds of old sermons on cassette tapes in Arkansas basements just waiting to be discovered by the Clinton machine. Surely, Huckabee's dispensationalist doctrine will be aired for all the world to hear, including his Pat Robertson-style beliefs about the end of the world and Armageddon.

Call me crazy, but I think it is not a good thing for a man to have the power to start Armageddon when that man believes Armageddon is inevitable. That one small detail aside, there are still many reasons to fear a Huckabee presidency. Keep in mind that the legislative branch is controlled by what Ayn Rand would call "looters". So while they might oppose every sensible idea Huckabee might propose, they are certain to rubber stamp all of his bad ones, of which there are many.

Let's focus on Huckabee's call for a national ban on smoking. His flawed logic was on display this week when he said that if smoking were a new product, the FDA would never approve it. Therefore, it must be banned. The Huckster's irresponsible statement demonstrates that he cannot tell he is dumping lubrication on the slippery slope leading to a bottomland of Nanny-State Orwellianism.

Before we discuss the lost tax revenues and the prohibition-style black market that would emerge, let us consider what the Huckster's argument would also ban. Everything common in American life that would not be approved if it were introduced as new would now have the potential of being banned. So just simply think of everything some do-gooder has preached against in the past year. Here is a short list:

Motorcycles, alcohol (Didn't we already....?), football, butter, red meat (Oh heck, all meat!) sugar, fast food, guns, back-yard trampolines, gravy, biscuits, biscuits and gravy, caffeine, helmetless bike riding... and so on.

Everyone in America would live five miserable years longer in a nursing home, exacerbating the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security. The point all do-gooders seem to miss is that all of us are eventually going to die. And before some of us pass, we have a burning desire to actually LIVE. I do not want my obituary to say that I lived to be 109 years old. I want it to say that Greg Amburgy enjoyed life to its fullest and pursued life in a manner no crusading meddler would ever understand.

Smokers carry their weight by paying excessive taxes and taking less in Social Security benefits. So not only would Huckabee and the do-gooders eliminate all the taxes collected from smokers, they would inadvertently create a growth industry in the black market. Imagine the violence that would ensue when cigarette cartels began fighting for territory in the suburbs. If the war on drugs has proven anything, it is that where there is demand for something, a market will emerge to fill that demand. And there would be an insatiable demand for cigarettes. You think we are losing the war on drugs? Wait until the law enforcement tab kicks in for the war on cigarettes.

Billions of untaxed dollars would flow to organized crime. Tobacco sniffing dogs would patrol our neighborhoods. The fact that someone smelled smoke on you would become probable cause for a search of your house. That search would reveal the hidden basement freezer with your stash of illegal red meat. Your canisters of bleached flour, sugar, and coffee would be seized as evidence. The fact that you had more than an ounce of coffee would implicate you with intent to distribute.

I am simply taking Huckabee's thought to its logical conclusion. But this line of thinking, preposterous just ten years ago, is infecting all of America and especially our politicians. Where is the candidate who firmly announces that his presidency will be used to protect liberty and freedom? I want to find a candidate with a sound foreign policy, a sound energy policy, and a hands-off domestic policy.

Can you say Ron Paul?