Sun 24 Feb 2008
Ralph Nader Comes Out Swinging!
Posted by Devman under Politics
Don’t call it a (green) comeback, Nader’s been here for years!
Ralph Nader has announced his presidential candidacy and has a website where you can learn about what he stands for.
Both Senators Clinton and Obama were publicly dismayed by this news and wished Nader would not join the race, saying he would take votes away from whoever the Democratic nominee ends up being.
I for one welcome this new Green-party candidate.
I consider Ralph Nader’s philosophy to be salvation through legislation, something I had blogged about before (and which my friend Jonathan had responded to). It is a double-edged sword, because on the one hand, you do need to have some amount of laws that punish corporations who abuse the public trust or endanger people by their practices, but on the other hand, such legislation, if not very careful, can hamstring local merchants and put them out of business.
For example, Ralph Nader “lobbied for the 1967 Wholesome Meat Act, which called for federal inspections of beef and poultry and imposed standards on slaughterhouses.” Well, that didn’t stop the latest 140-million pound recall or abusive practices going on in the meat processing plant. Also, it has led to only a handful of slaughterhouses in our entire country handling the vast majority of all livestock processing, and it has run out of business most local or regional slaughter houses.
As a result, local producers of grass-fed beef struggle to find slaughterhouses that are nearby and that will treat their animals properly.
That being said, the man believes that corporations are the source of most evil and that regulating them is the way to solve problems, and he is true to those convictions in his platform. He also believes that we as Americans need to get involved in our country’s political process and change it for the better, which is admirable.
Senators Clinton and Obama understandably fear he will draw votes away from them; that is probably true, but who knows, what if Ron Paul goes independent and runs, drawing votes away from the Republicans (and Democrats, too, as he cuts across the boundaries)? As Senator Clinton said, “it’s a free country”, and these men can run if they want to!
