BUSH TALKS LIKE 'PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD'
by Brendan
Trainor. [February 2, 2006]
[HollywoodInvestigator.com] President George Bush's State of the Union Address to the Congress last
night was an eerie demonstration of how non-reality based his administration
has become.
He spent
over half the speech talking about the State of the Union in other countries. As opposition to his ill-conceived War in Iraq grows, he felt compelled
to justify his failed policies by talking as if he were the President of
the Middle East, and not of America. At one point, he presumed to
address the "people of Iran" directly! Libertarians can only ask
-- just whose President spoke last night?
Bush used
the word "Isolationist" five times last night.
The word was coined by a Democratic President, FDR, as a pejorative term
for Bush's own Republican Party. Those were the days when the word
Republican meant "Defend
America First." Now it means "Invade
the World."
Beyond
that, Bush's use of isolationism creates a straw man. The choice
is not between isolationism and his policy. The real choice lies
somewhere in between.
In fact,
Bush is the real isolationist. He deals with nations he does not
like by isolating them from the world community, and if that fails, by
"regime change." The proper response, which worked well with China
and other nations, is engagement on many levels. For Libertarians,
the best foreign policy remains that of Washington and Jefferson -- Friendship,
Trade, no
Entangling Alliances.
When the
President finally came around to the actual state of the American Union,
his words revealed again that the Republican Party has lost its libertarian
vision that inspired America for a few brief moments in 1994. It
has settled into a comfortable ruling class mode of governance that has
led to the biggest federal spending spree since that last Texan in the
White House, Lyndon Baines Johnson.
While
tax cuts should remain permanent, the Republicans under Bush have expressed
little interest in the real job at hand-cutting spending. Last time
I looked, the Department of Education, Energy, HUD, IRS -- even their favorite
whipping boy, the National Endowment for the Arts -- still exist. Not only exist, but continue to flourish under a Republican Congress and
President.
New Departments such as Homeland Security have been added
to the federal stew of misplaced priorities, misplaced billions of dollars,
pork barrel spending, corrupt cronyism, attacks on civil liberties, and
a growing national debt that sits like the elephant in the living room.
As that elephant does what it does naturally, Libertarians hope that Americans
who can't stand the smell will flee to the real party of limited government
and individual rights -- The Libertarian Party, the Party of Principle,
not Pork!
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