The Great Republic

During every presidential election it’s inevitable to hear the electorate ask repeatedly, ‘What will the president do about the economy? What will the president do about the environment? What will the president do about foreign policy?’

Sadly, the proper answer is, ‘Not much'.

The economy, including fiscal policy, taxation, corporate investment, consumer trends, the price of food and gasoline, involves global forces which are largely beyond the control of the president.

The same applies to issues affecting the environment. The president cannot dictate what cars we drive or how we choose to warm our homes. Actually, he can’t even proclaim where we can dig for oil or cut down trees.

The same limits on executive power do not apply quite as stringently to the president’s foreign policy decisions. After all, the Constitution of the United States specifies that the conduct of foreign affairs is the one area in which the executive reserves a great deal of discretionary power.

But even in this arena of endeavor the president must take care to act in concert with the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives. That is, through Congress.

After all, let us not forget that our nation is a republic. It is a nation of laws. And these laws do not proceed from the pen of the president. Nor does he reserve the power to interpret these laws. These functions are properly reserved by Congress and the Supreme Court. The executive can only act in accordance with these laws and the interpretation of their Constitutional propriety.

Anything contrary to this rightfully deserves to be called a tyranny.

So, why do I express a preference for one presidential candidate over another knowing that the president actually has little power to effectively address the big issues?

Precisely because I believe the current president and his coterie have acted as far outside the expressed will of the people as they dare without risking a Constitutional crisis and impeachment. Initially he was able to do so largely on the basis of the fear and panic engendered by the bombing on September 11, 2001. But as that date recedes in the public consciousness he has only been able to pursue his policies of executive aggrandizement, corporate cronyism, and international alienation by judiciously jettisoning some of the more publicly unpalatable members of his inner circle and the lavish use of executive signing orders and the veto power.

In my judgment a vote for McCain will simply give assent to the continuation of an imperial executive. I don’t agree with this. I greatly respect the Constitutional principle of separation of powers. I have no use for a president who freely vetoes legislation drafted by our appointed lawmakers, and who then seeks to justify the legislative deadlock by pointing an accusing finger at a ‘do-nothing’ Congress. Such an action is simply an exercise of tyranny in disguise. And I bristle when the president seeks to accuse courts of ‘legislating from the bench’ when they arrive at legal conclusions with which he doesn’t agree.

I believe that Barack Obama will act with greater regard for the principles upon which our great republic is founded.

Also, I relish the idea of Hillary Clinton being appointed to the Supreme Court.

Sort of balance things out, you know.

Vote Democratic because . . .

In November I intend to vote to put a Democratic candidate into office as the President of the United States. Either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would make fine Chief Executives, though my preference is for Obama, largely because his election would show to the world that as a nation Americans consider themselves to be part of the global community. I believe that this is a far more important and realistic aim that that offered by the opposing party.

Listening to the Republican candidate I hear nothing but the sounds of fear and alarm. The Republicans constantly seek to remind Americans of how they must regard the rest of the world with suspicion, and that only aggressive and preemptive warlike behavior can bring the American people any degree of safety. Then they further remind the American people that they will never truly be safe, that they must constantly be in a state of readiness for war. That they continuously have to arm themselves, and that they should be prepared to react violently to address the slightest perceived slight. Otherwise, “they” might get “us” first.

I’m not buying it. To paraphrase another great American, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. A fearful nation is a dangerous one. The American public is aggressively fed a steady diet of fear, anxiety, and panic. The networks, newspapers, and magazines are replete with alarms of imminent disaster. Be it terrorists, environmental collapse, asteroids, nuclear-armed rogue states, or bioengineering disasters Americans are subjected to a screaming barrage of apocalyptic news. Even household germs are waiting to devour our families.

Yet, life goes on. Why do so many surrender themselves to blind fear and chronic anxiety rather than get on with the ordinary day-to-day task of getting along?

Well, because the task of ordinary living is largely boring. It’s painfully routine. Terror and warfare makes our lives so much more interesting. And it’s easier to wage war than to deal with such things as global warming, poverty, and universal health insurance.

I do think that blind panic led to Columbine. And the invasion of Iraq. And gang-related murders. And road rage. And the marginalization of the poor. I believe that all acts of violence and anti-social government policies find their ultimate support and justification in a largely unfounded but aggressively fostered sense of public fear.

The time has come to elect a president who will govern a sane and rational nation at peace, not a nation sustained by some paranoid fantasy requiring Americans, as both a people and individually, to react violently to the world around us. The time has come for a president who will not seek to profit by fostering a false sense of anxiety in the American public.

There is no war other than the one we create. The war on terrorism? A total fiction. It’s true. There are no Mujaheddine awaiting offshore in fastboats, prepared to run wild through the streets of our cities throwing burkhas over our women and cutting out the tongues of blasphemers. Such an absurd fantasy serves primarily to divert our attention from the fact that the global industrialists are robbing us blind, draining the blood and resources of this nation while the national infrastructure falls apart from neglect, while more and more Americans are falling into poverty, losing jobs, health insurance, and their homes while more obscenely rich individuals make it onto Forbe’s list of world billionaires.

But I digress. Fight for peace. Hell, do the right thing. Vote Obama.