Reasons to Cheer, Reasons to Fear

[publius]

There are a number of reasons to be glad George Bush won the election instead of John Kerry.

Bush doesn't seem to have Kerry's fondness for communist dictators. Or the French. Or the UN. He treats all of them better than I would, but that's part of the reason he's electable and I'm not.

Bush is likely to make better appointments to all appointed positions, most importantly the Supreme Court, than Kerry would.

While both would sign the mean looking weapons ban, at least in Bush's case he'll say he supports an individual rights interpretation of the second amendment on his way to signing it. He clearly doesn't mean it, but it bugs hell out of the gun grabbers when he says it, so that's nice.

I never hear a thing about Laura, and when I do, it's something boring and First Lady like that she's doing. We've been spared Teresa, and that can only be good.

My number one reason to cheer is probably the look on Dan Rather's face. I enjoyed it immensely.

Was it worth it?

My reasons to fear are the same ones I talked about here before the election. No gridlock has resulted in a growth rate in spending that is way more than twice the growth rate we saw under Clinton.

The details are here if you missed them:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=108223

Now he has a mandate for that kind of an explosion in spending. Unfortunately, he'll probably take it seriously, and NO will still not be anywhere in the vocabulary of the GOP Congress.

The number one reason to fear:

By 2008, the power of the President to declare someone an enemy combatant based on secret evidence and throw that person in a military brig, to be let out when the President gets darn good and ready, will be firmly entrenched.

The GOP Congress, and apparently the GOP electorate, trust Bush with that power, and that means that on behalf of all of us, they're determined to trust Hillary Clinton or whoever else may come along to occupy the Oval Office with that power.

There's really no going back now. We're going to live in a country without checks and balances, with military authority clearly superior to the civil authority, and with the power to lock you away indefinitely resting in the hands of one person.

I thought for a moment about touching that voting screen for W. Then I thought about Hillary having that power and nearly voted for Kerry. In the end, the only person on the ballot who really didn't seem to like that idea was Badnarik, and that's the main reason I voted for him.

 

[buzz_knox]

By 2008, the power of the President to declare someone an enemy combatant based on secret evidence and throw that person in a military brig, to be let out when the President gets darn good and ready, will be firmly entrenched.

Guess you missed the legal challenges to this, as well as the history behind it. The President has had this power since Lincoln, and it's been exercised before. Only now is it being challenged, and seems on the way to being curtailed.

 

[publius]

I know a thing or two about the challenges and past uses. Like the recent habeas petition, denied because, in addition to asking the proper person, a couple of improper people were named in the petition.

I haven't run across a past use that occurred in "wartime" where there was no declaration of war and no sign that the undeclared war could end during the lives of anyone concerned.

Considering the many references to how this kind of detention is appropriate "during wartime" in the various legal documents, there is an implication there that the power to detain combatants would end after the war.

That is projected to be just a couple of short years after government spending starts declining.

 

[nualle]

While both would sign the mean looking weapons ban, at least in Bush's case he'll say he supports an individual rights interpretation of the second amendment on his way to signing it. He clearly doesn't mean it, but it bugs hell out of the gun grabbers when he says it, so that's nice.

So you like Bush better because he'll lie to you. *skritches head*

 

[publius]

What's so puzzling about that? I enjoy things that cause discomfiture among gun grabbers. They'll both behave the same, but one will annoy the grabbers while he's at it. That beats pleasing them, in my book.

 

[Chairman Meow]

The real issues, like the ones you bring up, Publius, were sorely neglected by this campaign. People voted on values, not policies, and that may well come back to haunt us down the road. As with any president, we will feel the repercussions of Bush's policies long after he and his values are gone. The erosion of checks and balances he endorses to consolidate power into his own hands are fine and dandy if you like him and his values, but what happens when he's gone and someone you don't like has his job? If you think those powers will be gone when Hillary or someone like her wins the White House, then you don't understand the structure of our government. And if you don't think Bush's attitude can infuriate and mobilize the left enough to elect someone like Hillary, then you don't know your history. Nothing would empower the socialists more than for Bush to push us towards fascism, because that would give them all the "political currency" they need to buy this country, lock, stock, and barrel.