The website politicalcompass.org has mapped out the 2012 presidential candidates on its grid based on all elements of their policy, and the results should horrify anyone who bothers to look. On the organization’s graph of political positions, they have a scale of the political “left” and the political “right” on the x-axis and authoritarian and libertarian on the y-axis. On the graph, the points representing Obama and Romney nearly overlap, which should send a strong message to voters; whatever happens this election cycle, nothing is going to change. The policies advocated for by the executive of the United States, for all practical purposes, will be nearly identical. Also, because both candidates represent right-of-center authoritarian viewpoints, with Romney being a smidgen more right and more authoritarian than Obama, civil rights activists, libertarians and other espousers of freedom should be worried.
I recognize that many individuals were enamored of Obama’s sweet talk and his ability to inspire, dazzle and entwine his words with very real hope and change. I will be very frank with what I am about to say next: snap out of it. Snap out of the delusion, and objectively and realistically look at what Obama has done in the last few years.
As the peace president, Obama has created the unprecedented practice of ordering the assassination of American citizens around the world without giving these individuals the rights of speedy and fair trial as guaranteed by the sixth amendment to the constitution. Obama has created an unrestrained drone war with as many as four different countries. In Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen, Obama’s drones have reigned terror on civilians. In Pakistan, in particular, Obama has authorized six times the number of drone strikes than George W. Bush did during his entire eight years in office and has killed as many as 2,618 people, up to four times the number killed by Bush. In addition, while our government officially states that no civilians have been killed during these strikes, protests around these countries seem to indicate otherwise. Indeed, Pakistan voted to unauthorize our use of this warfare tactic, which Obama has simply ignored. Further, a study released by the Stanford University Law School and the New York University Law School indicates only 2% of those killed by drone strikes were high level targets.
In addition, Obama renewed the Patriot Act for which he criticized Bush, waged war on Libya without congressional approval, maintained a presence in Iraq as big as the Vatican, didn’t shut down Guantanamo Bay, has deported more illegal immigrants than Bush and sold $30 billion worth of weapons to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia. Any serious liberal should condemn these sorts of actions as being the very antithesis of peace and the very antithesis of change.
Transitioning to social and economic freedom, Obama and Romney are again identical. Both Romney and Obama supported the bailouts (anti-capitalistic in nature), and Romney created the very idea of the Obama tax used in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Both candidates flip-flopped on their views of gay marriage. Both candidates think that marijuana should be illegal. Both candidates support the federal reserve printing money to stimulate the economy, which if looked at objectively is an inflationary tax that destroys the poor, the middle class and those with small amounts of capital. Occupy Wall Streeters should cringe at both candidates blatant favoritism to the wealthy; this sort of crony capitalism is a form of Keynesian economics which is wholly independent from free trade and free market ideals.
I think sometimes it may be easier to criticize candidates than to provide solutions or alternatives. So next week I will discuss the third party candidates and why I feel they represent the only rational choice for individuals hoping to restore fiscal and social sanity to this country.
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