The 2006 Election: What's a Liberal Centrist To Do?
Or: Yellow-Dog Non-Republicans?
Lucky for you our departure was delayed by storms. Now you get to read this gem of wisdom..
I normally try hard to avoid partisanship. (The Democrats, incidentally, make this easy...) So, though I realize that, odds are, I'll support the Democratic candidate for president in the vast majority of cases, I usually try to think hard about the possibility of voting for the Republican candidate. This sometimes makes me feel like a tool in retrospect. For example, I spent untold hours agonizing over the Gore/Bush decision in 2000. It seemed like an easy choice, but, I wondered, was I just being partisan? What about the torrent of accusations against Gore? Surely they couldn't all be fabricated. Right? With so many seemingly well-informed and reasonably intelligent people absolutely insisting that there was something indefinably yet seriously defective about Gore, surely there must be something there that I was just missing. Right?
Well, wrong. As it turned out, it was, in fact, the no-brainer that it seemed to be.
But anyway.
The point here is that I've been considering a kind of mini, personal protest in response to the disaster that has been the Bush presidency. Goes like this: next election, I won't even consider the Republican candidate. Even if it's Dennis Kucinich vs. ....uh...well...[insert name of reasonable Republican here (use'ta would've been John McCain, but not anymore.)], it's still the Democrats for me.
I mean, trying to steal an election is bad enough...but trying to steal it for an incompetent, mendacious nimrod is...well, come to think of it, the attempted theft is really the worst part. But the other part's damn bad, too.
So the question is something like this: should people like me be yellow-dog Democrats at least for the 2008 presidential election? Or at least yellow-dog non-Republicans?
I was inclined to answer 'yes' until about a month ago. Then it hit me that Bush and company have screwed things up so severely that it might be absolutely imperative to elect the best candidate in '08, even if that candidate turns out to be from the party that screwed everything up. That is, it seems that Bush's presidency has been such a disaster that people like me can't even risk lodging a protest vote next time around. The Republicans have put the country--and, consequently, the world--in such a precarious position that we may not even be able to afford to punish them for it. Rather, we have to simply treat this election like any other, simply voting for the best candidate so far as we can tell.
Am I missing something here?
Or: Yellow-Dog Non-Republicans?
Lucky for you our departure was delayed by storms. Now you get to read this gem of wisdom..
I normally try hard to avoid partisanship. (The Democrats, incidentally, make this easy...) So, though I realize that, odds are, I'll support the Democratic candidate for president in the vast majority of cases, I usually try to think hard about the possibility of voting for the Republican candidate. This sometimes makes me feel like a tool in retrospect. For example, I spent untold hours agonizing over the Gore/Bush decision in 2000. It seemed like an easy choice, but, I wondered, was I just being partisan? What about the torrent of accusations against Gore? Surely they couldn't all be fabricated. Right? With so many seemingly well-informed and reasonably intelligent people absolutely insisting that there was something indefinably yet seriously defective about Gore, surely there must be something there that I was just missing. Right?
Well, wrong. As it turned out, it was, in fact, the no-brainer that it seemed to be.
But anyway.
The point here is that I've been considering a kind of mini, personal protest in response to the disaster that has been the Bush presidency. Goes like this: next election, I won't even consider the Republican candidate. Even if it's Dennis Kucinich vs. ....uh...well...[insert name of reasonable Republican here (use'ta would've been John McCain, but not anymore.)], it's still the Democrats for me.
I mean, trying to steal an election is bad enough...but trying to steal it for an incompetent, mendacious nimrod is...well, come to think of it, the attempted theft is really the worst part. But the other part's damn bad, too.
So the question is something like this: should people like me be yellow-dog Democrats at least for the 2008 presidential election? Or at least yellow-dog non-Republicans?
I was inclined to answer 'yes' until about a month ago. Then it hit me that Bush and company have screwed things up so severely that it might be absolutely imperative to elect the best candidate in '08, even if that candidate turns out to be from the party that screwed everything up. That is, it seems that Bush's presidency has been such a disaster that people like me can't even risk lodging a protest vote next time around. The Republicans have put the country--and, consequently, the world--in such a precarious position that we may not even be able to afford to punish them for it. Rather, we have to simply treat this election like any other, simply voting for the best candidate so far as we can tell.
Am I missing something here?
posted by Winston Smith at
5:35 PM
13 Comments:
What really scares me is this: Bush & Co. established a certain precedent for the office. Regardless of what party wins the White House, you have to contend with the possibility that, campaign promises aside (and since when did they ever really matter anyway), our new President-elect may have his/her eyes drifting toward an even greater consolidation of power for the Executive than W.
Granted, most of W's political capital came at the expense of the 3K+ that died on 9-11. But that does not mean we should ignore America's and Congress' relative complacency since then. Even when things look as if they are about to change, they tend toward what has become the status quo. Witness: The Democrat Congress unable to over-ride the Presidential veto on a withdraw from Iraq.
The people who chose the Republican nominee are upset because our current president isn't Bush enough. They're looking for someone who is more Bushlike than Bush is. Therefore they are not going to elect anyone competent...
Since we can take incompetence for granted, why even consider rewarding the Party of Bush?
Anonymous hit on an extremely pertinent point there:
The biggest problem we're facing is not Bush, but rather America's and Congress' TOTAL lack of an even slightly respectable response to it all.
Why the man has not been impeached is astounding. The process is there in order to remove people exactly like this - the problem, as it has been revealed, is that the majority of Americans can't comprehend the most elementary logic, and they don't even understand how our government is supposed to function. Think about it: the hottest topics in America are
1) Whether or not same-sex couples are allowed to be married (regardless of the fact that any argument against it is illogical and the federal government has no constitutional authority over this matter)
2) Drug prohibition (regardless of the fact that, the vast majority of the time, with exceptions for substances like PCP or heroin, the arguments for it are illogical and the federal government has no constitutional authority over this matter)
3) Whether or not "intelligent design" should be taught in schools as an "alternative to evolution" because "all viewpoints should be available".
4) Whether or not the American people were lied to about the Iraq war.
When you look at these issues, you realize that the vast majority of Americans are so stupid that it's nearly impossible to expect that someone like Bush won't be elected. This government was set up to allow the people to thwart someone like Bush, but that's it. It can't do it for them, and we've got a populus too stupid to be able to defend itself against this insanity.
They've been born into a nation that has been continually corrupted until we reach today, where the government has little regard for the initial constitutional setup of the nation. It's so strange - people just presume that there must be something they don't know when they read the Constitution and realize that there's no reason the federal government should be permitted to make half the laws it does, as the only powers it should have are those expressly declared in the Constitution.
We have reached a point in time where things have become so complex that we presume that we are incorrect because we just aren't educated enough about the insanely confusing legal system and the government. Now that we're here, most people don't even try to understand anymore because they presume it to be impossible without years of law school or graduate level education. The vast majority of people just sit around in their ignorance and are reduced to saying "Well it's not that bad" and "There's nothing I can do".
What CAN we do?
I don't know. It really doesn't seem like voting is enough anymore. Seems like voting for a leader of a devastated system supported by a population of mostly complacent zombies is just not going to cut it.
Winston,
At this moment in time, is there a plausible Dem v Repub 2008 Pres. match up where you would support the Repub? The answer to your question, based on its premises, seems easy. Support the best candidate after weighing party affiliation (with R a strong negative and D a weak negative)in determining which candidate is best. You might end up having to ask yourself a different question: support the best candidate (who happens to be third-party candidate) or the second best who actually has a chance to win.
Suppose there were a Republican who is a paragon of personal virtue who thinks well and moderately about foreign and domestic policy. Suppose that nonetheless this man (we are talking about Republicans, after all) could win the Republican nomination for President. Frankly, I think he'd have to stuff the ballot box at the RNC to get anything approaching reason past the fundies, the anti-tax fanatics, and the PNAC imperialists (not to mention the industrial and tribal pro-war interests).
So, with those ridiculous counterfactuals in a suspension of disbelief that J.C. Rowling would laugh at, what government would you get? You'd get the permanent policy apparatus of the Republican Party. This is what gave us Dick Cheney, Elliott Abrams, the vast and vapid neocon network, among others. You'd also retain the permanent political apparatus of the GOP, and you'd better believe that Karl Rove is just the tip of the iceberg.
This is no sale. There is no Republican for nationally significant office who deserves a vote. Not a single one.
All of you clearly need to check out Ron Paul:
www.ronpaul2008.com
I think you'll be impressed, despite the republican label.
I was. He's the best candidate I've seen. Ever.
Ron Paul seems like a very thoughtful, honorable man. But I refer you to our host's recent post "Libertarians Are Wrong, Episode 2: National Parks." For me, Ron Paul goes too far with his libertarian views and does not support what I think are some very important roles for the government.
I think the only real issue where I disagree with him is the free market stuff (I tend to be more socialist than most of my liberal counterparts), but I figure having a democratically controlled congress would keep that from getting too out of hand.
What were some of the issues you saw with him, Richard?
Mystic,
Let me do a little fact checking and try to compose a reasonably thoughtful response. I have enough respect for Ron Paul that I want to be sure to fairly represent his views. I'll get back to you in a day or so.
Sounds fantastic.
While I don't think he's the perfect candidate, I do think he's probably the best I've seen in my short, but reasonably politically-engaged life.
I’m going to concentrate on two big issues where I think Ron Paul’s philosophy and views don’t align with mine: 1) taxation and social welfare spending and 2) regulatory policy. Let me say up front, some of this is extrapolation from what I know of the Libertarian party, so I could be educated if Ron Paul has taken different positions.
As luck would have it, the Washington Post ran a nice story and graphic on our rapidly approaching fiscal problems.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/06/21/GR2007062100186.html
As most of you know, under current projections Social Security, Medicaid, and especially Medicare expenditures are going to start rising rapidly. Interest payments will quickly follow. I think that Ron Paul would approach this by opposing any tax increases and focusing on limiting the growth of the three programs. This would fit with his support of low taxes and emphasis on personal responsibility. Personally, I think a more balanced approach, including some tax increases very soon, is a better approach.
Second, I think that Ron Paul would not use the regulatory powers of the executive branch to the same extent that I think it should be used. I want to be clear that I think the government’s regulatory power should be used judiciously. There needs to be a strong social and/or economic justification, the proposed rule needs to pass cost-benefit tests, and the proposed rule needs solid evidence that they will be effective and efficient. Libertarians generally seek to drastically limit the regulatory power of government both because of a belief in small government and a belief in personal freedom and responsibility. Ron Paul appears to share these philosophies. That can make it very difficult to deal with public good type problems, such as the environment (including climate change), drug-resistant bacteria, etc. I think there is an important role for government to play in addressing public good problems, and libertarians are not very likely to agree with me on that.
Those two examples should give you an idea of the kinds of concerns I have about a candidate like Ron Paul. As always, I’m happy to be educated.
Like others here, I do give Ron Paul some credit for intellectual honesty that is sorely lacking in every other current Republican candidate for President.
However, part and parcel of the Libertarian position on the Federal Government is that it should not be in the business of providing a social safety net, as Richard described above. Now, while I can't attribute it specifically to Paul at this point, a very large reduction in the signal to noise ratio regarding Social Security facts has been caused by Libertarians and places like Cato in particular. What they found was that they got more political traction when distorting the truth about SS than when making the philosophical case against it in principle, a philosophical position the vast majority of this nation disagrees with (hence the designation of SS as the 'third rail' of politics')
The net effect has been to infect the discussion about policy going forward with various myths about Social Security.
With that said, some facts and truth. First, it is disengenuous to lump SS with other entitlements, especially Medicare and Medicaid, because those latter programs suffer from a larger trend in health care in the US, namely abnormally high cost inflation. No such problem exists for SS, because it's benefits are at least partially funded by productivity and economic growth, both of which continue apace.
In fact, if anybody ever bothered to actually read the trustees' reports, it would be common knowledge that assuming either low or intermediate cost assumptions, SS would remain solvent indefinitely. The past five trustees' reports have seen the predicted dates of trust fund negative growth and trust fund depletion recede further into the future. Cite http://bruceweb.blogspot.com/2006/07/guide-to-bruce-webb.html
Another fact which is not often mentioned is that Republicans have consistently used the SS trust fund, which has a large surplus, to mitigate the appearance of the overall deficit (deficit in the *General Fund* of the US gov't.). Worse still, when someone like Al Gore suggests putting the SS fund in a 'lockbox', so it can no longer serve to mask the true fiscal clusterfuck a series of Republican administrations have created, he is ridiculed endlessly for it. And so it goes where well-heeled interests are able shift the discourse in their favored direction.
Similar distortions occur with respect to health care. Entrenched interests which, like trained seals, invoke the *inefficiency* of government to argue against government managament of anything at all, somehow shout down the fact that Medicare operates on about a 3% overhead, while the private health care system averages 15-30% overhead. (Please note also that this in no way argues that government-run healthcare could necessarily SLOW THE RATE OF INCREASE OF THE COST OF HEALTHCARE, at least not without price controls or rationing. Nevertheless, basic math shows that we could immediately save billions in overhead which could then be reinvested elsewhere).
The same quarters also seek to evoke visceral reactions in the electorate to suggestions like Medicare for all; they do this by labelling it *socialized medicine*. Never mind that it doesn't involve government control of the means of production, it still serves to doom any honest discussion of the proposal. (BTW, the REAL socialized medicine program we have in this country, the VA system, still gets better outcomes per dollar spent).
If all of this seems somewhat askew to the question of Ron Paul as a candidate, I freely admit it is. But what I would really prefer is an honest debate about the merits of various forms of Libertarianism, from Millian liberalism to anarchic captitalism. History has shown that when the electorate gets a true taste of some of these ideologies, shorn of their slogans and faux-scientific analysis, it really doesn't like what it.
Well, wading through all of that, I think my response is this:
I concur with Richard that there are public good functions of government that Libertarians don't agree with and yet, they should. It is pretty clear that the government should take responsibility for public good issues like global warming, environmental protection, and the like.
It's strange to me, though, for in my research of Ron Paul and his environmental policy - he claims to be environmentalist on his website and his policy towards environmentalism is explained thusly (quoted from him, personally): "...the environment is better protected under private property rights...We as property owners can't violate our neighbors' property. We can't pollute their air or their water. We can't dump our garbage on their property...Too often, conservatives and libertarians fall short on defending environmental concerns, and they resort to saying, 'Well, let's turn it over to the EPA. The EPA will take care of us... We can divvy up the permits that allow you to pollute.' So I don't particularly like that method."
As with all of his policies, he thinks that, due to the Constitution not explicitly stating that the Federal Government gets the right to control environmental concerns, the State Governments should be responsible for regulating it.
I'm kind of torn, because I think that sounds pretty reasonable. While I don't like the whole "you can't destroy it 'cause I own it" thing (I'd rather say you can't destroy it because you have no moral right to do so, since destroying life and harming the planet only because you want to make more money is morally reprehensible), it does seem like it'd work. If a factory is polluting, it's inevitably going to affect the regions near it - indeed, it will affect much more than the generic American citizen believes it will, and if those grounds can be successfully used in order to bring lawsuits against factories to force them to stop polluting, that's fine by me.
As for the privatization of Social Security, I think that that's probably a bad idea too.
What I really need is a list of his objectives and their priority order. I think that some of the concerns we have, given his speeches and statements on those things he'd like to see done away with, would be low on his priority list.
Also, I'm going into this with the knowledge that the senate and the house are both controlled by Democrats. Presuming that it stays that way, I'd like to see him as president because it seems to me that the Democrats would have him enact those policies I'd want him to enact and they'd keep him from enacting those I'd rather not see enacted.
If we had a republican congress, I might be a little more wary. I think Ron Paul, unfortunately, is unaware of the capability of individuals to circumvent private rules and regulations, and to do a large amount of whatever they want with the right lawyers.
Those are all good concerns that were brought up - I just don't see anyone other than him actually doing anything to make a change. He seems way more courageous and honest than any of the other candidates - Democratic or Republican.
It'd be a hard decision if he went up against John Edwards, but unfortuntely for us, neither will win the primaries so we won't have to worry about it anyway.
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