L.A. Liberty

A Plea to Leftists: Stop Marginalizing Peace and Civil Liberties →

I am not a progressive. I don’t think that the federal government is suited to managing the health-care sector from the top down, or that public employee unions should be strengthened, or that green jobs are a strategy. But in 2008, I celebrated the end of the Bush Administration … because I witnessed what I wouldn’t have thought was possible: a black Democrat rising to the presidency while unapologetically affirming that the Iraq War was a mistake; that the choice between safety from terrorists and civil liberties was a false one; that spying on Americans without a warrant was unconstitutional; that indefinite detention without charges was illegal; that it made no sense to incarcerate so many people for possessing drugs. I knew Obama would implement some domestic policies with which I disagreed, but I felt good about his victory, if only because he affirmed that an American president couldn’t launch a war without Congressional permission unless we were attacked; that transparency was vital even in the executive branch; that whistleblowers were heroes. …

… [All just] broken promises …

Is Obama better than all the Republican candidates on these issues? Certainly not. He is worse than Gary Johnson and Ron Paul; arguably worse than Jon Huntsman too. Is he better than anyone likely [sic] to win the GOP nomination? Perhaps. Does it matter? What does “better than the Republicans” get you if it means that executive privilege keeps expanding, the drones keep killing innocents and inflaming radicals and destabilizing regions, the Pentagon budget keeps growing, civil liberties keep being eroded, wars are waged without Congressional permission, and every future president knows he or she can do the same because at this point it doesn’t even provoke a significant backlash from the left? Is the dysfunction of the Republican Party license to oppose those policies less vociferously than they were opposed during the Bush Administration?

These aren’t fringe concerns, or peripheral disappointments to lament … — they are issues of maximal importance that are central to the Obama Administration. They ought to be raised as such in every assessment of Obama’s tenure.

(Source: jeffmiller)

Posted November 7, 2011 at 5:13pm in war 4th amendment 2012 Ron Paul Gary Johnson | comments || home