Democats, Republicans--both the same. Ron Paul would be a real kick as President, wouldnt' he?

Friends discussing the current administration's assaults on the U.S. Constitution (provoked by the proposed new law to allow takedown of Web sites on mere allegation of copyright infringement), wondering what ever happened to the Constitution. The subject of detainees in Guantanamo arose.


One says of Obama: "This is a professor of constitutional law, now a US President. He knows damn well that Guantanomo is a cesspit of bad prior POTUS behavior, but one rooted in extra-territorial precedent. My altruism says: free them."


Another replies, "Mine too. But my inner soldier says, "...and have a firing squad greet them the second they step through the exit."


This is, indeed, a difficult situation. But two observations:

One: If, as Ron Paul points out, we weren't sticking our military noses in every corner of the world, we'd have fewer of these Constitutional sticky bits to deal with. When you act badly, your good choices become limited. I have a whole rant about this, but never mind for now.

Two: As a Libertarian, I was not interested in which pol won the last presidency, but I hoped that with a liberal Democrat in office, we'd at least get some of the things Dems like to consider themselves good at (and blast the Repubs for being bad at), like: less war; more respect for freedom of speech and other civil liberties. it would almost be worth paying the price in taxes and limits on property rights to back away from our many wars and our many assaults on our liberties.

Instead, we get more of the same. It might as well be Bush II up there. 

The ironies abound: When the Bushes were in charge, we got all the taxes, regulations, and gigantic new government agencies the Dems are supposed to do, and none of the restraint on the growth of government the Republicans claim to favor. And of course we got the Republicans' wars. With their predecessor, Clinton, similarly, we got the best Republican president the Democrats have ever had -- lower taxes, reduced regulatory intrusion, plus a Democrat benefit of few/limited military nosiness. We didn't know how good we had it.

So you get foreign-policy adventurism, growth in government power, growth in government spending regardless of ability to pay for it, and continued assaults on our liberties, with a general annoyance at the notion the Constitution might limit any of this -- from whichever major party you vote for. Or stay home and not vote for.

It would sure be a hoot if Ron Paul got nominated and then, even more improbably, elected. The likelihood of that guy, based on his history, voting for more spending, more taxes, more invasions, more civil-liberty assaults, and so on, is very low. It would be fun to watch D.C. turn upsidedown.

But unlikely all around: If he makes much more progress in the polls, they'll have to start mentioning him in every race roundup instead of only occasionally in passing, and when he gets too far up there, they'll go try to find a way to do a Herman Cain on him -- the political press's nuclear option when they want to get rid of somebody but don't want to acknowledge their complicity.

[end rant][God I hate politics]

Mac McCarthy

Believe It or Not, Here are 4 Presidents Who Were Even Worse Than Bush!

According to recent public opinion polls, only one third or fewer of those surveyed approve of President Bush's overall job performance. More startlingly, about one quarter consider George W. Bush to be the worst president in U.S. history. If these respondents took the time to look closer at other U.S. presidents, however, they might well rank them even lower than they rank Bush, as Independent Institute Senior Fellow Ivan Eland suggests in his latest op-ed.

Eland offers a litany of costly mistakes, bad precedents, and unconstitutional abuses by previous U.S. presidents. James Polk, for example, lied to get Congress to declare a war to grab land from Mexico. William McKinley permanently expanded the president's power at the expense of Founder's vision of the balance of power between the three branches of the federal government, and he also turned the anti-colonial United States into a colonizer in the Philippines and in other lands formerly occupied by Spain. Woodrow Wilson plunged the country into World War I and helped set in motion a chain of causation that would lead to World War II. In addition, writes Eland, "Wilson's violations of civil liberties during World War I were the worst in U.S. history and make Bush's look fairly mild." Harry Truman enshrined Wilsonian interventionism, permanently burying the traditional U.S. foreign policy of military restraint. Eland also takes Truman to task for intentionally bombing civilians in World War II and the Korean war, unconstitutionally fighting the Korean War without a formal declaration, laying the groundwork for the first large permanent peacetime army in U.S. history, and more.

"Make no mistake," Eland concludes. "George W. Bush has been a horrible president and is one of the worst in U.S. history. But of the 42 men who have served as president, these four men--Polk, McKinley, Wilson, and Truman--were probably worse."

"Is George W. Bush the Worst President in U.S. History?" by Ivan Eland (9/13/08)

Also see, "To Make War, Presidents Lie," by Robert Higgs (10/1/2002)

"No More 'Great Presidents,'" by Robert Higgs (The Free Market, 5/1/97)

The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed (Updated Edition), by Ivan Eland

Center on Peace & Liberty (Ivan Eland, Director)

"But what will a Kerry victory buy you?..."

[This was first published in 2004, but it applies generally to politics at all times, so I am republishing here in this blog. This despite the fact that Bush has turned out to be one of our worst presidents on many levels.]

My liberal cousin from Back East responded: "And I am reading this email from La La Land who elected the Terminator for Governor?? Your points are all well taken, I just cannot stand another 4 years of Bush.. the puppet to Doctor Evil (VP)."
---
Da Terminator actually vetoed a bunch of bills -- as he said he would -- to the astonishment of the political and chattering classes up and down the Left Coast. I figure, if politicians can't do any good (and wouldn't know how if they fell over it), at least they can veto things and provide entertainment value while we watch the pols have fits about how civilization is coming to an end. Vastly amusing.

You can't stand Bush continuing, but what will a Kerry victory buy you? Clinton was going to be the great white hope for the Dems after 8 years of Reagan and the first Bush, and he turned out to raise spending less than Reagan, didn't raise taxes much, didn't fund many new budget-buster entitlement programs -- he was a better Republican than a Republican. Bush comes in all full of small-government values and raises spending faster than any Dem in the past 40 years, adds the biggest new entitlement programs since the first Bush--heck, he's the closest thing to a Democrat you've had in the White House since Jimmy Carter! What are you complaining about?

How does Kerry differ? He won't withdraw from Iraq, he's already said that. He can't possibly increase government spending on non-defense projects faster than Bush already has, so it's a wash there. He can raise taxes and crush the economy even more than Bush and not even bring in more revenues, but where's the fun in that? He'll pontificate as much as Bush, but about different things. That's all.

You are under the illusion that there is a huge difference between these two men: There isn't. Despite propaganda on both sides to the contrary, they are both fairly centrist representatives of their political parties. The world hasn't come to an end under four years with Bush, and won't do so in the next four years, nor will it under Kerry. The rhetoric, the passion, the garment-rending are florid far in excess of the realities of either candidate, or for that matter of their parties. If you really don't like having Bush around some more, you won't get much relief with Kerry--just different stylistic flourishes.

There is no comfort or relief in voting Dem or Repub. They're both just fighting over who gets to wear the jackboots, and who gets to have the boots on his neck--that's all. Each party wants to force America to Do The Right Thing, as they interpret it. Neither can actually accomplish that. And neither will give up the effort. And we all suffer because we've got the whole idea of what the government is supposed to be doing for us -- instead of to us -- completely wrong.

Well, it doesn't matter, the heck with it -- neither is the demon, neither is the christ, so I don't care who gets the most votes, or how those votes are counted. I worry more about the extremist arguments, the intense polarization that used to be the special province of the political junkies, but is not so harmless when the general populace takes up the cry. We don't need at-any-cost extremists in our midst, and that's what it's coming to. We all need to have a drink and cool our jets.