Safety Nets are for Losers
Would it have been better if McCain had been elected?. The best argument that Obama is better than McCain would have been is that McCain might have started a war with Iran (instead of Libya); then again, he might not have. McCain would also have pushed for Social Security and Medicare cuts, but Democratic resistance would have been significant—now, with the push coming from a Democratic president, it’s highly likely that the Democrats will cave in.
The old adage is that power will give nothing up unless it’s forced to; however, often unsaid is that power will also seek to expand itself. So the wealthy interests controlling the machinery of power will gather more to themselves, at the expense of everyone else.
They’ll do this even if this increases the risk of everything collapsing, apparently. “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs” sounds good until the other members of your cartel inform you that they’ve already started talks over who’ll get what part of the goose, and that if you don’t join in, you’ll get nothing from the goose and the eggs will stop nonetheless.
So while perhaps the powerful can be trusted to look after their own interests in terms of making sure they get more than their fair share from the system, it’s entirely possible that they can’t be trusted to maintain the integrity of that system itself—the recent banking crises are a good example of this, as of course is the demise of every previous empire. It’s likely that the presence of a political faction that represented the less powerful, and that had some sway, would be better overall for everyone, including even the powerful in the long run.
There’s no sign of such a faction in American politics, however, so they don’t have that to worry about.
Oh, and you should definitely watch the George Carlin clip at the bottom of the article.