In Muted Defense of Gridlock
D.A. Ridgely on Aug 30th 2008
In Mr. Babka’s “Why I Don’t Want United Government,” reader Jeff Hebert makes some very interesting comments, including the following excerpt:
I find it very surprising that anyone seriously concerned with libertarian issues would support a Republican President this time around. The Bush Administration has had a sustained, hard push over the last eight years to make the “Unitary Executive” doctrine the de facto law of the land. It’s hard for me to imagine anything worse for our liberties than a chief executive with the powers and privileges of a monarch, and yet that’s exactly what Cheney, Bush, Yoo, and company have been working steadily towards.
John McCain has surrounded himself with people who hold the most extreme neo-conservative views in the party. He’s not just going to be four more years of Bush, he’s going to be four more years of the worst parts of Bush. If the idea of “anything’s legal if the President does it” doesn’t scare you way, way worse than universal health care (plenty of other Western countries have it and yet shockingly their nations have not imploded), expanded union power (ditto), and some changes to the way the FCC works, then I would respectfully suggest that your priorities are way out of whack.
We’ve been witness to a full frontal assault on the concept of separation of powers and the enshrinement of a monarchical executive, largely unnoticed by the vast majority of the country. When asked what he would do with his first 100 days in office, Obama said “I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution.” That’s exactly what I want to hear.
I certainly agree with much of Mr. Hebert’s characterization of both the Bush Administration and of John McCain. If we were discussing Obama versus a third Bush term, I’d be more inclined to agree as well with more of Mr. Hebert’s reasoning. As matters stand, however, and subject to change on a daily basis, Democrats are likely to increase their control of both the House and the Senate, so the question becomes not which candidate successfully pursuing his agenda poses the greater threat but which candidate is least likely to successfully push his agenda.
I’m no McCain fan or supporter. The man is an autocrat and, from just about every insider report I’ve ever heard, one of his many homes is in Cloud Cuckoo Land. The question is whether giving McCain yet another residence, this time on Pennsylvania Avenue is more likely to perpetuate or worsen Bush’s imperial presidency versus what sort and how much damage is likely to occur in an Obama Administration.
I continue to believe that what genuinely troubles the Democratic Party is not the immense and increasing power of the presidency but merely the fact that it’s not currently theirs to use. I agree with Mr. Hebert that there are worse things than socialized medicine. Perpetual war, for example, springs to mind. Furthermore, as offensive as a return of the Fairness Doctrine would be, it isn’t exactly like John McCain is a staunch defender of free speech. But, whining from progressives aside, there is absolutely nothing I know about Obama to lead me to believe he would be cautious in his use of executive power once it was given to him or, frankly, that he would not pursue a far more leftist agenda than he has so far proposed. Like McCain, he is not a man who tosses and turns late at night fretting with self-doubt.
Speaking of which, does Mr. Hebert really like to hear a candidate promise to “overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution”? Feel? Okay, so maybe Obama was speaking somewhat informally or imprecisely. But just how does he plan to go about overturning not merely executive decisions but laws as well? Let’s at least hope not by fiat.
The key to winning the presidential election in the U.S. continues to lie in campaigning sufficiently close to whatever the political middle happens to be to wrest away swing state (electoral) votes from your competition. If Obama announced his intention to press for legislation requiring universal “public service” nonmilitary conscription of 18 year olds and a 50% increase in all marginal tax rates, he’d win Massachusetts just the same but he’d lose Virginia for sure and probably Ohio, too. If McCain announced his intention to reinstate the military draft and abolish the Department of Education, he’d still probably win Mississippi and Arizona but lose Virginia and Ohio. Okay, so maybe my examples can be argued, but there are dead certain red states and dead certain blue states and a slowly shifting handful of swing states where the battle will be waged.
But none of that has anything to do with how the winner governs. Politicians all lie. Maybe not all the time but whenever necessary. If McCain really gave a damn about Obama’s lack of experience he sure as hell wouldn’t have picked Palin as his running mate. If Obama really gave a rodent’s hindquarters about change he wouldn’t have picked long time Washington insider Joe Biden. They’ll both do and say what they believe they need to do and say in order to get elected. Once elected, they’ll do what they bloody well want to do.
Unless another branch of government stops them.
I hesitate to make the next point, but sooner or later it must at least be put on the table. If it is true, and it is, that Obama’s race is a factor in the election, then it is also almost certainly true that Obama’s race would be a factor in Congress’s relationship with his presidency. I don’t know how that would play out and I am not accusing Obama of anything so crass as “playing the race card” either now or should he be elected. I do think, however, that members of Congress will have to weigh one more factor in any decision to oppose or criticize a President Obama and that is whether such criticism or opposition even hints of racial animus.
Perhaps not. Perhaps even raising the issue shows a disconcerting oversensitivity to such matters on my part. Even so, all other factors being equal, I must believe there is a far greater likelihood of a Democratically controlled Congress standing up to a white Republican president than a black Democratic president regardless of the merits of whatever issue is under consideration.
Libertarians aren’t going to get minimal government any time in the foreseeable future, so minimally damaging government is the best they can hope for. Minimally damaging government tends invariably to be government that does the least regardless of how big it already is, so maximal gridlock is the best possible outcome from a libertarian perspective.
But best possible outcomes can be nearly as far removed from ideal outcomes as worst possible outcomes. I haven’t decided to vote for or otherwise support McCain. Far from it, in fact. But I certainly can understand how other libertarians, perhaps reasoning as I have here, might decide that, contra Mr. Hebert’s comments, voting for McCain is the most proactively libertarian thing they can do this time around. Doubtlessly (well, hopefully, anyway), they’ll be holding their noses as they do so.
This much I do know, though. If monopolies and collusive oligopolies really are bad for the general public, then undivided government and political “bipartisanship” ought to be prohibited on antitrust grounds. And that would still be true even if the president and every member of Congress were self-styled “Libertarians.”
Filed in The Basement, The Bureau
I always get queasy when I see one of my comments quoted. Ah well, nothing for it, I guess. Anonymity is so much safer!
And yet there is a mountain of evidence to believe that Mr. McCain would be enthusiastic in the use of said power, and would pursue its strengthening, as you seem to admit in your post.
Think about it this way. Who do you want to put in charge of protecting the hen house, the guy who helped found KFC or a vegetarian who might slip a bit now and then? Regardless of who you’ve got running the farm, Colonel Sanders is a really, really bad choice.
But believe me, yes, I absolutely worry about Obama being corrupted by the power and refusing to give it away. I’ve complained loudly and bitterly to try and get the Democrats in Congress to get something done on oversight and repeal of these powers before the election for exactly that reason — it’s a lot easier to be a gun control advocate when the other guy’s got a pistol and you just have a knife. While I believe Obama is sincere in his desire to curb executive authority, it’s much more tempting to keep it when you’ve got it.
I also think you’re making the mistake of overlooking the fact that you’re not electing just one guy, you’re electing an entire Administration. To let the Republicans, who have made the Unitary Executive their raison d’etre, continue converting the DOJ into a Presidential frat-house instead of being the independent agency it was intended as; to continue populating the courts with like-minded authoritarians; to continue turning the Executive Branch into an extension of the party apparatus; to continue assigning people to key positions who are unqualified political apparatchiks (Palin, anyone?! It was his first “hire” for goodness’ sake!); all of this is as much the issue as who the individual is at the top of the ticket. You’re not just electing John McCain, you’re electing the party he heads and the positions they endorse. The key one of which is that if the President does it, it’s legal.
And so we’re left with your argument that the best hope of restraining executive authority lies in having the White House in the hands of one party and the Congress in the hands of another. As you’ve said:
Frankly I think the likelihood of a Democratically controlled Congress standing up to any President of any party for any reason at any time is pretty far-fetched, given their spinelessness over the last two years of being in charge with a historically unpopular President pushing an enormously unpopular agenda.
This election isn’t about progressive/liberal vs. conservative. It’s about authoritarianism. One party has tragically, inexplicably come to worship it as a core value, while the other is, as a function of their strange constituencies, much less likely at this point in history to fall prey to it. They can’t even get all their members in Congress to vote the same way, for goodness’ sake! I have a lot of faith in the Democrats’ ability to NOT get things done.
As an aside, is there any way we can get the “preview comment” function back? I’m always paranoid I’ve left out a closing tag or something. And I’m sorry this is so long.
Thank you for your comments, Mr. Hebert. I trust that, at the very least, I didn’t misconstrue or take your earlier comments out of context.
I certainly do acknowledge that McCain is a ravenous carnivore; where we differ is in my doubting far more than you apparently do that Obama will have even the slightest tendency toward vegetarianism once we give him the keys to the meat locker.
Bush & Co. didn’t invent the imperial presidency, they did what every wartime president has done; namely, seize the opportunity. Until now, the only time since FDR that I can recall the Democrats ever seriously objecting to presidential power was during the Nixon Administration. (And, hell, Nixon was a liberal! He just wasn’t one of their liberals.) As far as that goes, Republicans, who were always all for limited power in the hands of Democrats, turned out unsurprisingly to be just as subject to Acton’s Law as anyone else. Gee, what a surprise.
Finally, if the election is about authoritarianism, we’ve already lost. One of those guys is going to win and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts his subsequent role model is more likely to be Augustus than Cincinnatus.
You can call me Jeff, D.A. I live on a farm surrounded by animals, there’s no reason to be formal when in all likelihood I’ve just come in from hand-feeding something even dumber than your average Congressman :-)
In a way that’s true, but this time we’re at war with a tactic, like the War on Drugs or the War on Poverty, only with much bigger weapons and an even less definable end point.
I definitely share your fear, that neither man will surrender the imperial powers already handed to them. Our difference is that I am absolutely certain McCain will not only wield but expand them, while Obama at least has given lip service to their repeal. On such slender threads hang my hopes for the rule of law. What a sad, scary time we live in.
Actually, part of the reason I continue to use D.A. and refer to others by their last names is to discourage what I consider the faux-familiarity of 21st century America. But that’s another thread for another time.
Although, as my detailed Positive Liberty biography notes, I currently reside in Texas, I continue to consider the People’s Republic of Arlington, Virginia my home. Unfortunately, that makes Jim Moran my Congressman, so I’m reasonably certain that whatever you were feeding is smarter unless you’re running a fish farm.
gridlock is wonderful, but the only way for true gridlock is Dem president, and Rep congress.
the other way does not work because congressional dems have no backbone. they always give in.
so the better hope is that the 41 or more remaining Rep senators can block Pres Obama’s foolishness. if McCain would win who would block him? the Reps would not because he is their leader.
While I agree with Jeff (or Mr. Hebert) that McCain is more likely to be wholly enamored of the unitary executive theory than Obama, I think the greater problem is that the above quote from DAR is correct. The power of the executive branch continues to grow unabated, regardless of who is in office. As things are going now, McCain vs. Obama may be merely a choice of how quickly, rather than whether, that power continues to grow. I guess that makes Obama preferable to McCain.
Re: Names.
For a long time, I referred to all the co-bloggers site by their last names alone. I’d not yet met any of them, and one who was writing with us at the time had a penchant for formality. Now, however, he’s departed, and I’m kind of unclear myself what the protocol should be.
Mr. Kuznicki,
Others should suit themselves, as I have not yet attained quite the level of megalomania required to believe that the world should order itself exactly according to my wishes.
That said, I do not consider myself on a first name basis with every retail clerk, telephone receptionist, salesperson or, lest others think this is a matter of snobbery, physician, professor, attorney, office holder, etc., I encounter. Neither do I wish to be on a first name basis with everyone else on the internet. I suspect marketing research or some such led consultants to advise businesses that using customers’ first names puts them at ease, builds confidence, etc., but I find it off-putting in the extreme. (I find it especially off-putting and down-right cynical in the context of medicine, but I’ll save that rant for a separate post someday.)
Yes, the use of surnames is distancing. Good. The world could use some distancing, if you ask me. (And even if you don’t.) If everyone is on a first name basis with everyone else, then being on a first name basis with anyone in particular is meaningless. I prefer to strive for it to continue to be meaningful in my life, at least. As the kids used to say, your mileage may vary.
There are few things I hate more than having a checkout clerk look at my check, and then say, “Thank you, James,” for exactly the reasons DAR notes. I think formality is the oil between the gears of society that reduce friction.
That said, I think a particular blog is something of a community so that each can evolve its own norms. And as libertarians, perhaps the appropriate norm is to allow each to choose how they preferred to be addressed. At the least, it seems the courteous way to handle the matter.
Since I’ve already threadjacked my own topic, I’ll add that, in general and subject to whimsical exceptions, my internet rule is to use surnames if the other party’s internet name includes his or her surname but otherwise to use whatever internet nickname the other party uses.
Threadjacking my own threadjack, I’ll note, also, that I disapprove of internet nicknames and aliases but, no, I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind or practice about that, either.
Third, and threadjacking my threadjacked threadjack [insert jacking off joke here], I usually avoid calling anyone with a doctorate, earned or not (but especially not) “Dr.” unless the doctorate in question is of the medical variety. I know, I know. It’s probably much harder to get a Ph.D. in, say, physics or mathematics than it is to get an M.D. and, yes, the historical argument is with the scholars, “doctor” roughly means teacher and yadda, yadda.
Sorry. If you’re a real professor at a real school and prefer the title “Professor,” I’ll gladly oblige. But if I start calling mathematicians and chemists “Dr.,” I’ll have to start cringing every time consistency requires me to call someone with a Ph.D. in sociology or, gawd help us!, someone with an Ed.D., “Doctor.” That much cringing could easily prove deleterious to my health.
Finally, and relevant to almost no one here except maybe an occasional reader, as an Episcopalian in technically good standing, I make a habit of calling all bishops, of whom I have made the acquaintance of a depressing number over the years, by their first names. I do this because (1) the rite of consecration includes a rubric that states something to the effect that “hereafter the newly consecrated bishop shall be referred to by his Christian name,” saying nothing about applying only as long as the service does (heh!) and (2) because it pisses many of them off. (A wonderful exception to Point #2 was the late Donald Coggan, who befriended my wife in his retirement and who, upon meeting me, said “Please call me Donald.”)
There are few things I hate more than having a checkout clerk look at my check, and then say, “Thank you, James,” for exactly the reasons DAR notes.
Funny, in my grocery store, the clerks always say “Thank you, Mr…. Kuz — niss — kiski… is that right?”
I can’t decide which is worse. Also, I never want to be called “Dr.,” although I have a doctorate (in history), but if someone else insists, I’ll use the honorific with them. I’ll call you whatever you like to be called, as long as you respect my right to pass my own judgment on it in private.
It’s true that, the last 25 years of African American names excepted, pronouncing and sometimes spelling surnames rather than just using first names is more challenging. There are three plausible variant spellings of “Ridgely”; namely, “Ridgely,” “Ridgley” and “Ridgeley.” Somehow, though, I get the latter two well over 75% of the time when people are forced to guess. Go figure.
Anyway, permitting service personnel to default to first names for that reason is on a par with those cash registers that have pictures of all the items for sale on them because “math is hard!”
I know I come across as curmudgeonly on this topic, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I continue to believe that the world could do with a little less unearned self-esteem and a little more polite deference to the presumed dignity of strangers.
My favorite so far is my Scientific American subscription, which dutifully arrives each month addressed to “Jess Abart”.
Sometimes if I’m feeling cheeky and someone I’ve just met says “You can just call me “, I’ll respond with “Great! And you can call me Petunia.”
Perhaps the reason I don’t get many second invitations is becoming clearer …
Please do not take my article as a personal endorsement of John McCain! My comments are merely a description of whether or not we’re in the 3rd circle or the 4th circle of the Inferno.
As for teaching the GOP a lesson, both good and bad things can come, and good things and bad things can be prevented, regardless of which flavor wins. And as the President of DownsizeDC.org, I know the election of either McBama or O’Bain will keep us busy.
I have not made up my mind if I will vote, though the recent poll data showing Barr at 8% begins to make me interested in him. I don’t think participating in a vote total of less than 1% helps anything; quite the contrary — I believe those exceptionally low vote totals hurt us. But under no circumstance will I be voting for McCain or Obama. I was simply making an argument for gridlock as marginally better then presently available alternatives.