Melanie Scarborough thinks US presidential candidates should be running against socialism and stupidity, not using them as tools to manipulate voters.

1. It is not the responsibility of your fellow citizens to buy health insurance for you and your family. They have enough of a burden paying their own bills. …

2. “Diversity is our strength” has become a dangerous mantra. Diversity will destroy us unless we start insisting that those who come here to take advantage of our prosperity also assimilate to our culture. …

The only way the United States can protect itself from such inevitable chaos is to severely limit immigration from Muslim countries — and withstand the caterwauling about bigotry. Western democratic values are fundamentally incompatible with some of the tenets of Islamic law. Muslims who do not believe in the equality of men and women, secular government, or freedom of speech are never going to embrace American values, and their presence can only weaken our culture.

3. There is no relationship between the amount of money spent on schools and the quality of education. For example, Washington, D.C., ranks third in per-pupil expenditure yet has one of the worst school systems in the country. The crucial determinant of student achievement is the competence of teachers, and paying higher salaries to bad teachers doesn’t solve the problem. …

4. As economist Robert Samuelson recently pointed out, the United States faces a crisis that will become a catastrophe if we don’t take immediate steps. By 2050, one fifth of the population will be older than 65, and while the entire U.S. population may exceed 430 million, about four-fifths of that increase will reflect immigrants, their children and their grandchildren. “The potential for conflict is obvious,” Samuelson said. “Older retirees and younger and poorer immigrants — heavily Hispanic — will compete for government social services and benefits. Squeezed in between will be middle-class and middle-age workers, facing higher taxes.” …

5. It is not the government’s responsibility to take care of you from cradle to grave.

She’ll have to vote for Bob Barr. John McCain isn’t likely to become a domestic conservative.

Via the News Junkie and McQ.