Presidential Candidates, blah!

Yesterday morning I felt I should blog a little about the French presidential election. I was about to say that the candidates produced little more than a blah feeling and I was going to argue that the center right candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, was in reality more of an extreme right candidate. Then I dropped by Liberation’s website and realized that Mr. Sarkozy was having no qualms positioning himself near the neo-Nazi fringe . If elected he is intent on creating a ministry of immigration and national identity. Besides the chill down my back it brought to my attention an interesting difference between leftists and conservatives. The former usually view the transnational journey of goods and services with a weary eye while they don’t mind the people while the latter often blindly support the transit of goods and services while opposing the (e)immigration of people. I do not think that either position is defendable. If globalization means that buying goods from China because it is cheaper is right, why would employing Chinese immigrants be wrong? The principle behind both is the same: the lowering of cost for the producing of goods. The leftist candidate besides being gorgeous does not seem very attractive to me. Part of the reason is that I believe that Socialist parties in Western Europe have idiotic agendas that do not reflect economic realities. I think that a fiscally realistic government would do much good to those countries. Note that I do not say conservatives, as the last few congresses in the U.S. have left much to desire about fiscal restrain. I also think that her latest comments about military personnel needing to be afforded full freedom of speech were, well idiotic. To me it shows that Miss Royal clearly does not know what she is talking about. The military has to remain subordinate to the political power and that includes losing some freedom of speech. The more so in an all-volunteer force as is the case in France. The people who join know what they are getting into (or at least they should) and if curtailed civil liberties are such a problem no one is forcing them to re-enlist.