I continue to be amazed by friends, relatives, and people in general regarding the frenzy known as our presidential election. It’s as if people actually believe a new president will make there lives better. For people who claim to love freedom, that sure is a lot of power to give one person over your personal autonomy.
Voting in this country is participation in a process that validates an establishment that never meaningfully changes, because the establishment neither wants or has the consent of the governed.
The two-party system is a mechanism used to limit public opinion. Big issues are more than just two sided, but the two parties want to box us into a corner; one of their corners.
There is no such thing as public opinion, because every thinking person has opinions that are uniquely his or her own. Public opinion is just a manufactured narrative that makes it easier to convince people that if their views are different, then there’s something wrong with that, or something wrong with them.
The whole purpose of the Democratic and Republican parties is not to expand voters’ choices, but to limit them, because those widely perceived differences between the two parties is just an illusion. The heart of government policy remains the same no matter who is in the White House, or what the people want.
Those hugely vaunted differences between Democrat and Republican are just minor disagreements about things that are toward the bottom of most people’s priority list. Both parties just want power, and are willing to have young people fight meaningless wars in order to enhance that power. Both parties continue to fight the war on drugs, just to give bureaucrats and cops bigger budgets and more jobs.
Government policy doesn’t change when government leaders do, because no matter who wins an election, government stays the same. Government is really a revolving door for political hacks bent on exploiting the people once they’re in charge. Both parties support welfare, war, debt, bailouts, and big government.
When a politician asks the question, “Are you better off now than four years ago?”, the most important part of the answer is why. What is the real reason you are better or worse than four years ago? I doubt seriously the government had much, if anything, to do with it.
The rhetoric political candidates display on the campaign trail is dumped after electoral victory. You have to make promises to get elected; you don’t have to keep them.
Barack Obama campaigned as an anti-war, pro civil liberties candidate, but has waged senseless wars while also assaulting our rights that the constitution is supposed to protect. Nothing has changed at
George W. Bush campaigned on a platform of non-intervention and small government, and then waged a foreign policy of muscular military intervention, and a domestic policy of vast government borrowing and growth, signing the $700 billion Wall Street bailout into law one month before the 2008 presidential election.
Bill Clinton declared that the era of big government was over, but actually just convinced Republicans like Newt Gingrich that they could get what they want out of big government too. Of course, the Republicans went along with it.
George H.W. Bush was swept into office on the good-feeling coat tails of Ronald Reagan. His 80%-plus approval ratings came crashing down when he compromised with Democrats to try to lower Federal deficits, reneging on his promise not to raise taxes, dropping his approval rating to 40%, and costing him a second term.
Ronald Reagan spent six years running for president, promising to shrink the government, but then the national debt grew from $907 billion to $3.25 trillion dollars during his eight years in office. Notwithstanding his ideas, cheerfulness, and libertarian rhetoric, there really was no “Reagan Revolution" at all.
And now all this is happening again as the empty political rhetoric is being shuffled around and repackaged. But instead of one year out of every four, the campaign for the next one starts the day after inauguration.
Rick Santorum is being embraced by voters who want small government, even though Senator Santorum voted for the Patriotic Act, an expansion of Medicare, and raising the debt ceiling by trillions of dollars.
Mitt Romney is being embraced by voters who want anyone but Barack Obama, but other than skin color, they don’t realize that Mitt Romney might as well be Barack Obama on everything from warfare to welfare.
Ron Paul is being ignored by the media, not because, as they claim, he’s unappealing or unelectable, but because he doesn’t fit into the pre-manufactured public opinion mold used by the establishment to pigeon-hole the electorate, and create the so-called narrative that drives the media coverage of elections.
The biggest difference between most candidates is not substance but style. These stylistic differences are packaged as substantive ones to reinforce the illusion of a difference between Democrats and Republicans. If Mitt Romney wins and continues the same policies Barack Obama promoted, which are merely extensions from George W. Bush, we are left with more of the same.
What if a government that manipulates us, and lacks the true and knowing consent of the governed could be dismissed?
What if it were possible to have a real game changer?
What if we need someone like Ron Paul to preserve and protect our freedoms from the government?
What if we could make elections matter again?
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