We now have our two major-party presidential candidates. I think I’m going to be sick.

I’ve been reading about John McCain’s philosophy: “To sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself, and to sacrifice your life to the eminence of that cause, is the noblest activity of all.” Here’s Barack Obama’s ethic: “…we have an individual responsibility to be our brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper. Each of us will have to accept responsibility…(for) sharing some measure of sacrifice.”

Excuse me while I get an antacid.

Obama plans a “new course for America,” where “fiscal responsibility and shared prosperity go hand in hand;” and the “chance to get a college education should… be the birthright of every American.” McCain wants to “help Americans hurting from high gasoline and food costs” and “provide help to those hurt by the housing crisis.” And they both want to set limits on so-called greenhouse gas emissions.

Oh, my pounding headache!

There are more–many more–platitudes on each candidate’s list for saving America from itself. How is it that we have two opposing presidential candidates who are fundamentally indistinguishable?

Both McCain and Obama came of political age in a legislature where
business-as-usual is exemplified by the porkfat feeding frenzy upon American wealth and individual rights.

These politicians arrogantly believe that good government has the compassion and wisdom of a good parent. Both believe good citizens faithfully accept whatever sacrifices are extorted from them. Both believe that government has the right to meddle in every conceivable aspect of our lives.

McCain and Obama believe in the process they practice.

Neither candidate advocates anything close to the principle Ayn Rand identified as the correct role of government in a free society:

“The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence..The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.”

As America moves closer to more statism, at least we can get some symptom relief by promoting rational ideas…. and by taking a whole lot of antacid.