Positive Liberty

Tim Sandefur writes as follows about one of my recent comments:

Less coy than [Ed] Brayton is Jason Kuznicki, who I think showed too much of his hand when he said “once Bush is safely out of office—and Kerry is safely in office–you’ll see me attack him with all due savagery. But not a moment before.” That’s a remarkable statement. It’s okay to hand the keys to John Kerry without skepticism; only once he’s in office for a good solid four years will we turn our eye on him!

If I may say so, I believe this is a somewhat unfair characterization of my position. Let me be utterly clear: I believe that Kerry will be a poor president. I believe he will bumble through his term only semi-competently, and I look forward to retiring him after four undistinguished years.

The key point, though, is simple: Whatever Kerry manages–or does not manage–as president, I am convinced that he will do better than Bush. I’ve asked myself, in this battle between two very poor candidates, which one will do worse. I have found the answer to be Bush, and I have acted accordingly.

If I were running a newspaper, we might call this a bias. But in the personal opinions of one individual, coming to a decision does not automatically denote bias. A faulty rationale must be found, and one that the individual in question holds to tenaciously, without ever stopping to examine the consequences.

What, then, might my faulty rationale be? It is often heard that those who incline against Bush do so merely because they incline against Bush–a tautology, as it were. But I disagree that my reasons are tautological; I believe on the contrary that they are quite well-founded.

John Kerry will no doubt bring to the executive branch a great many Clinton-era officeholders. While these do not share my opinions on very many things, at least I can expect them to concede some greater measure of public accountability than what we have seen from the current administration. I can expect from them a greater measure of respect for individual rights, particularly the rights of the accused. I can expect them not to alienate our allies so tactlessly either. I can expect from them at least a neutral attitude toward gays and lesbians, rather than the egregious bigotry of the present administration. I can expect that they will not attack the right to abortion at every turn, and I can expect that future court appointments will protect women’s access to abortion. I can expect the creeping Christian theocracy to be halted in its tracks.

Oddly enough, I can even expect that the Democrats will exercise more fiscal discipline than the current administration. They could scarcely do worse, and even if they tried, the Republican congress would never allow it.

So… If we had a president merely as bad as Clinton, it would still be a tremendous step forward for the republic. I trust John Kerry to be this president: Incompetent, wrongheaded, but somewhat less so than Bush.

I am not handing Kerry the keys without skepticism; instead, I believe I have exercised skepticism about both sides, and I have found one side to be more wanting than the other. For the moment, then, I consider that the most politically useful way to deploy my skepticism is to come down harder on Bush–until he is out of office.

Do I hate the president? No. Voting for the other guy doesn’t equal hatred, and the prevalence of this canard only shows how debased our political discourse has become. I am glad that Mr. Sandefur disavows it, but I feel it necessary to say anyway, since so many of Mr. Sandefur’s charges–like the apparent claim of tautological bias–so often come from those who also equate Kerry-support with Bush-hatred. The truth is, I find both candidates distasteful; I merely find one more distasteful than the other.

I do not hate Bush; I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for Bush’s misguided beliefs, for his poor instincts, for his abysmal grasp of the world’s complexities. I feel terrified whenever he relies on his faith–his mysticism–to make decisions. It strikes me as odd that Mr. Sandefur, an avowed Objectivist, doesn’t seem to feel the same way. I am convinced that faith is no way to govern, and I have the sense that John Kerry, however deep his personal faith may be, at least recognizes that this world must be run on something more than a collection of pious wishes. On matters of governance, Kerry can be reasoned with; Bush has demonstrated again and again that he cannot. Above all, this is why Kerry is the more deserving candidate, and why he will get my vote. And if that’s bias, then so be it.

Update: Here is a passage I wish I’d written myself, from Llewellyn Rockwell:

With a track record going back some 35 years, we do know that Democrats have tended to expand the budget less, deregulate more, pass fewer new government programs, care for certain fiscal responsibilities, protect civil liberties a bit more, bring about fewer wars, avoid aggressive protectionism, and do a better job of cleaning up the public sector. Conversely, we also know that Republicans bust the budget, create new agencies, expand the federal payroll, zoom debts and deficits, start wars, and protect favored industries with trade tricks. Yes, they do cut taxes but for the same reason that Democrats try to raise the minimum wage: sops for friends….

The Democrats are the party of government, with the owners consisting of mostly public sector employees and their dependents. These are some of the most loathsome characters in American politics. Paradoxically, however, they have the strongest interest in keeping government functioning well, which implies balancing the budget, cleaning house, stamping out corruption, maintaining some semblance of order and peace, not doing things that utterly discredit bureaucracies, finding fixes to make things work a bit better for themselves and their friends, etc. As the most direct owners of the state, they have the strongest interest in its health and well-being.

The Republicans in contrast are the party of the private sector and the government contractors. Their primary interest is in getting their hands in the pot that belongs to the government. They are anti-government alright, so much so that they are willing to loot for themselves just about everything that is not nailed down.

Bingo.

Update II: Tim Sandefur continues to misconstrue my original comment, now saying that I would “shield my eyes” from Kerry’s failings.

Nope. As I explained above, I’ve seen Kerry’s failings, and I find them deplorable–but less deplorable than Bush’s. Sandefur writes, “The question is whether it is reasonable for one to always (and frequently with a haste that ends up embarrassing one) see draw the worst possible conclusions from even the slightest suggestion of the Bush Administration’s shortcomings–and then remain silent in the face of indefensible flaws in Kerry and his supporters.” Anyone who would write this clearly hasn’t read what I’ve written. He’s also using too many prepositions.

To take just one issue, consider civil liberties. Clinton may have used wiretaps at an unprecedented rate. But what came after him? Now we have the PATRIOT act, which greatly expands the wiretap power–in secret. I don’t think it’s a coincidence, either, that 2000 is the last year for which we have statistics on the number of authorized wiretaps.

It only gets worse from here: Now we have secret military tribunals whose powers even the administration itself prefers not to define. Would Clinton ever have created these? In a sane world, would a Republican-dominated Congress ever have approved them?

Clinton may have extradited people who didn’t deserve it, and this was certainly deplorable. At least he didn’t hold American citizens incommunicado. At least he didn’t stand idly by as American soldiers tortured prisoners of war. At least he didn’t set up a system where God only knows how many prisoners are being held in secret, with no guarantees whatsoever for their rights.

Clinton was bad, and unprecedentedly so. But Bush has taken the abuse of civil liberties to an entirely new level, one that we would never have dreamed possible just four years ago.

What I most often hear in Bush’s favor is that he, unlike Kerry, somehow “understands” the nature of the conflict before us. Yet Bush’s understanding on this score must be so profound, so cosmic… that it never makes contact with earthly reality.

If Bush understood the nature of this conflict, then he would have cooperated with the 9/11 commission from the outset. He would have seen that Abu Ghraib was a decisive turn for the worse, and one that called for swift and harsh reprisals. He would have made at least some greater effort to prevent the looting and disintegration of Iraqi society that followed the invasion. He would have understood that capturing or killing Osama bin Laden would have been a tremendous public relations victory–and that al Qaeda has little left to trade on besides its public image.

Bush does not understand this conflict. That’s precisely why he’s made such a mess of things. The next time I hear someone say that they’re voting for Bush because Bush “understands,” I think I’m going to puke. What, precisely, does Bush understand?

Yes, if the Islamic militants succeed, we’ll all have to convert to fundamentalism or die. I hear all the time that Bush “understands” this–but then, I’m pretty sure that the average 5-year-old, even the average Democrat, also understands it. This one tiny, elementary point should hardly count in Bush’s favor. Why does it? Why do we give him credit for “understanding” something that everyone else already understands?

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