If the various Czars exercise real power, shouldn't they be accountable to Congress.
Here's a question that has been nagging me for months. Are Obama's ever-growing number of "czars" constitutional? I am not a constitutional scholar, but I have read the document. Article II. Section 2:
He (the President) shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consults, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein provided for, and which shall be established by law; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.
As I read it, the Constitution is very specific about whom the President may appoint and he can do so only within parameters "established by law" and this applies specifically to the "heads of departments." I interpret this to mean Cabinet Secretaries, all of whom must be vetted and approved for their positions by the Senate.
The Republican National Committee's conservative caucus recently passed a resolution expressing their concern, noting that, "The U.S. Constitution explicitly states government officers with significant authority (called "principal officers") must be nominated by the President and are subject to a vote of the U.S. Senate."
Obama's appointments are clearly "principal officers" though it will be argued that they are only advisors to the office of the President. Clearly, Obama's appointments are not heads of departments, but they appear to have been granted an unknown degree of influence and control as regards their responsibilities. They function "in the dark."
For example, since we have a Department of Labor, why do we need an "Auto Recovery" czar, Ed Montgomery, who reports to Larry Summers, the President's top economic advisor? What can he do to effect recovery? And, constitutionally speaking is it lawful for the United States to have "ownership" of General Motors? Or any other private enterprise? I think not.
Why does President Obama need a "Special Envoy for Climate Change"? Todd Stern reports to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but we have the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that includes the National Weather Service. What exactly does Stern do and why? Stern is best known for having helped negotiate the Kyoto climate pact which was based on the discredited claims of a global warming that is not happening. It was instantly rendered void by the exemption of nations such as China and India.
Meanwhile, the so-called energy and environment czar, Carol Browner, is reportedly coordinating policy in the same area as the "climate change" czar despite the fact that we have both a Department of Energy and an Environmental Protection Agency. Obama's choice for "Green Jobs" czar, Van Jones, is a Marxist radical.
I could go on, but the point, obviously, is that there is an enormous amount of overlap going on and it involves appointees who give the appearance of being doppelgangers to the existing Secretaries and the huge bureaucracies they oversee. They answer directly to the President, but presumably so do the Secretaries whom we occasionally see gathered around a huge table in cabinet meetings.
If these people who have not been approved by the Senate or occupy positions that have not been "established by law" and are not "heads of departments" exist solely at the pleasure of the President, are we not hip deep in some very muddy waters concerning who is answerable to the Senate or House committees?
I am of the belief that Obama has methodically gone about creating a shadow government of men and women with undefined powers, but who likely have even more influence with the Oval Office than those who hold office under the mandates of the Constitution.
To borrow a term from the White House, it all smells "fishy" to me in ways that go beyond just the provision of advice and which likely intrude deeply into the process by which laws and regulations are drafted and enacted.
There are now some thirty or more of these "czars" and they represent a threat to the authority of the Congress and could be utilized in some manufactured "crisis" to take control of the federal government, dispensing with the rule of law.
I believe all of these new offices have been created to “pay off” Obama’s supporters. The Administration could argue that the individuals named as “Czars” have no real power, but then who outside of the Administration knows? Given the political leanings of many of these czars, Obama prefers to surround himself with Marxists. I remember my parents telling me “show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.” Is there any question as to who Obama is?
Let’s examine just two of the more than thirty appointed czars of the Obama Administration.
White House appointee Van Jones; the Green Jobs Czar. An avowed revolutionary and communist; he founded STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement). The organization expressed solidarity with their Arab brothers shortly after 9-11.
Mark Loyd the new Diversity Czar over at the FCC. A self declared socialist who was quoted as saying “Chavez did it right” when asked about Venezuela’s commandeering od independent radio stations. A Senior Fellow at the American Progress Institute, he authored a June 2007 report entitled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio”.
If you were a democrat, even a democrat enjoying a sixty seat Senate Majority; would you care to defend these characters in a committee vote? How about a general Senate debate/vote?
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/09/those_scary_obama_czars.php
Raymond,
I don’t think anyone here was actually under the impression that Obama literally had people in his White House with the title of “Czar”, but thanks for the clarification. That aside, at what point does “Bush did it too!” begin to exhibit diminishing value as an argument? So Obama only has 20 more unaccountable, unelected White House policy advisors, political appointees, special envoys, and assistant undersecretaries to the special envoy’s committee on special envoys. The point is, he’s got more of them than any other administration has before, and they appear to have been given much broader objectives and authority in this administration than those past.
And, as was pointed out above, a few of these “Czars” are, indeed, quite scary, or least they are if you’re the kind of person who isn’t into Marxist/Leninist revolutionary philosophy or you don’t think that constituational rights need to be massaged or abandoned for the sake of “equal” political speech or to prevent hysterical Malthusian population disasters. Had George W. Bush appointed people to his cabinet that held similar philosophical, political,a and scientific views to some of those in Obama’s cabinet, everyone in the country, and you in particular, would be savaging him for his backwardness and anti-scientific, anti-intellectual viewpoints. But in the same way that you were 100% sure that our Alpha and Obama did not share the insane views of his race-obsessed conspiracy theorist pastor who served as a personal friend and spiritual advisor for 20 years, you are equally sure that people who have served prison time for participating in race riots and have been self-avowed “communist revolutionaries” as few as 5 or 10 years ago (and failed to ever renounce the self-given title), or who have advocated (purely theoretically, of course) forced sterilization and mandadatory abortion within the United States to prevent a population explosion in a dystopian American future, or who admire South American despots for nationalizing broadcast media, are innocously serving as “special envoys for the study of synthetic carpet fibers in White House rugs”. I guess it’s on a conspiracy when your party is out of office.
Mr. Mulligan – The article here questions the legality of many of the appointments – and “Bush did it to” is a valid point. If it’s wrong, it somehow wasn’t a problem until the wrong party began using the power. Now that’s “on a conspiracy when your party is out of office”.
That’s separate from the qualifications of those put in the positions, which I’m more than happy to agree with you are frequently distressingly bad.
Oh, and I’d ask you to either produce an actual quote of mine where I said anything like “Obama did not share the insane views of his race-obsessed conspiracy theorist pastor who served as a personal friend and spiritual advisor for 20 years”, or else retract the statement. Would it surprise you to know that I didn’t vote for Obama?
I don’t think it’s so much that the author intends to imply that other presidents’ “czars” were legal while Obama’s are illegal, but that the issue has just now been raised because Obama seems to be making more extensive use of these officers. And it is an interesting question – one that should probably be addressed before a “special envoy for the drafting of laws” replaces the entire congress and the “secretary for the interpretation of legal challenges and disputes” renders the Supreme Court unnecessary.
I couldn’t pull a quote from you saying exactly what I wrote, and certainly wouldn’t dig through the archives to try, nor did I intend to imply that it was a direct quotation. Instead of “you” I should have just said “liberals” or “Democrats” because it was intended in a more general sense like that.
It doesn’t surpise me at all that you didn’t vote for Obama. You strike me more as the Subaru-driving, principled type of liberal who thinks the very act of getting elected is a sell-out of your values and probably threw your vote behind Dennis Kucinich or went Green Party. I don’t say that to sound dick-ish, it’s just that’s the mental image I have of you from here :)
Excuse the typos in my previous post.
Mr. Mulligan – Obama’s positions on wiretapping and detention worry me a lot more than his special envoys, actually. I’m not a Democrat or a Green, either. I voted Libertarian – I don’t agree with all their policies, but things would have to go a long way in that direction from where we are now until I thought they’d gone too far.
Given the choice between McCain/Palin and Obama/Lieberman, I think the latter is the lesser evil… but still evil, and often only barely lesser.
Yes, phone calls to Saudia Arabia routed through American phone systems and the imprisonment of nice Arab family men innocently walking through terrorist training camps in Afghanistan at precisely the wrong moment when sadistic American storm troopers happen to be there is obviously a high concern for all of us right now.
But sarcasm aside, if that is your primary concern, think about it like this: what if Obama had a “czar” in charge of “communications security” who had made statements in the past that the government should have the authority to nationalize American telecommunications and monitor all traffic through telecommunications systems without warrant, probable cause, or due process? You’d probably be concerned that a person advising the president held such bizarre, extreme, and unconstitutional positions. Now you understand why people whose primary concern is, for instance, individual property rights are so concerned that a person advising the president on “green jobs” has, in all seriousness, self-identified as a communist who ascribes to the Marxist critique of capitalism and suggested that it is a moral imperative of government to redistribute wealth to minorities.
I am glad you voted Libertarian for a couple of reasons, even though, philosophically, you are probably only in about 1% agreement with the libertarian viewpoint. For one, they can use all the votes they can get, and I wouldn’t at all mind seeing a libertarian president, and for two, at least you stole a vote for Obama.
Mr. Mulligan – Regarding wiretapping, I’d respond, but you didn’t address it the last time, so why bother? Detention’s the same thing. I don’t have a problem with the 5% that were actually captured by U.S. troops. It’s the vast majority who were turned in for reward money or to deflect suspicion that bother me. Nobody here wants to actually talk about those cases, though, so again why bother?
The illegality or not of the special envoys and czars doesn’t bother me nearly as much as those illegalities. Though yes, as I said before, the qualifications of a lot of Obama’s appointments “are frequently distressingly bad”. We’re in violent agreement there.
Sorry, I was in the last 3 weeks of completing my undergrad degree capstone project and couldn’t make it back to put in a follow up to that very serious discussion. The archives appear to be broken, so I can’t go back and make sure, but I’m almost positive we’ve had 2 or 3 other discussions where wire tapping under the Patriot Act was a topic of (more serious) discussion and more verbose presentations were made. Just in case we haven’t: I’m not terribly concerned about roving wiretaps because I don’t often communicate or share telecommunications devices with people likely to be suspected terrorists, foreign or domestic, and I don’t make a practice of breaking the law (and even if I did I wouldn’t discuss it on my phone or when emailing my buddies) so anything the FBI gets a hold of incidentally through a wiretap isn’t very likely to incriminate me. And isn’t likely to hold up after the fact anyway, since being an American citizen on American soil and not being affiliated with international terrorist organizations in a middle eastern country, I would have to be hauled before an honest-to-God American court. And lucky for me, I’m in the district of the 9th circuit court of appeals, so even if I’m wrongly convicted based on a roving wiretap of a foreign terrorist, my odds are good of having my conviction overturned. That’s not to say I don’t have concern for the legitimate protection of civil liberties, including (especially, actually) freedom of speech, I just fear less for my freedom of speech under the PATRIOT Act than I do for my private property rights with a self-avowed Marxist Communist whispering into the president’s ear about how to spend mine and others’ collective money in order to subsidize jobs in the energy sector. For that matter, I fear less for my freedom of speech under the PATRIOT Act than I do for it under proposed legislation that would give the president authority to sieze private internet networks, halt all traffic, and access all data contained therein in the event of any event the president may deem a “cyber emergency” (they reported it at Fox News too, but I figured Mother Jones would be more likely to have the appearance of veracity in your view). Chalk it up to different priorities, I guess.
At any rate, you kind of missed my point. I was just trying to explain the significance of these advisors’ and envoys’ and special assistants to the traveling secretaries’ viewpoints in the minds of the people who are concerned about them. If anything, this may be an opportunity to bring awareness to potentially unconstitutional authority that has been wielded by White House appointees for decades and restrain it if necessary – a positive achievement for civil libertarians on the left and right, no?
Mr. Mulligan – Don’t be so sure that you’d be safe. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” Do you know whose motto that was? Stalin’s NKVD – which became the KGB. Or as Cardinal Richelieu put it, “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.”
Don’t necessarily count on trials or judicial review, either. Jose Padilla was an American citizen arrested on U.S. soil too, and, well… it only took about four years to convince the Bush administration that they actually had to hold a trial after all.
Or in more modern terms, if Bush can take your 4th amendment rights, then Obama can take your 2nd. Look up “writs of assistance” and their use in colonial America. They’re the main reason we have the 4th amendment.
I don’t like the seizure of power that Bush engaged in, and I don’t like how Obama seems to be continuing it. Abraham Lincoln was undeniably a great man, but in my darkest moments I wonder how much of the wartime powers that he’d taken on would have been relinquished, had he not been assassinated. I don’t trust anybody with that kind of power.
If opposition to the ‘special envoys’ actually does end up restoring some restraints, that’s awesome. I’m not convinced it’s going to lead to that, though.
Ah, but you missed one of my qualifiers: “…and not being affiliated with international terrorist organizations in a middle eastern country…”. Jose Padilla was, after all, convicted in a civilian court of supporting overseas terrorism and conspiring to commit murder pursuant to in Islamic jihad and sentenced to 17 years in prison. That case also violates another one of my qualifiers: “I don’t make a practice of breaking the law…”. Jose Padilla, after all, had already been convicted of aggravated assuault and manslaughter as a juvenille street gang member (and would likely have still been in prison instead of being tormented by the Bush administration had he been tried as an adult). Ambiguous though certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act were, it is hyperbolic to the point of comedy to compare it, in spirit or in action, to the NKVD.
For that matter, comparing the extra-constitutional authority seized by Lincoln to anything Bush did is absurd as well. I can’t even accuse Obama of outrightly suspending constitutional rights in such a fashion (though I will hardly be surprised when/if he does). I would hardly consider it a “dark moment” to contemplate the usurpation of power by Lincoln.
In any case, you say you don’t trust anybody with the kind of power the Bush administration supposedly wielded, but in reality you just don’t trust people you don’t trust with that kind of power over the issues that are important to you. In the same way that many conservatives weren’t concerned with their free speech under Bush because they trusted his NSA’s judgment to only listen in on phone calls of terror suspects, liberals aren’t concerned with their property rights under Obama because they trust his judgment to confiscate just the right amount of their wealth and create just the right amount of inflation.
I’m not convinced special advisory positions with no congressional oversight will be abandoned now or the future either, but I do find it ironic that you consider yourself a civil libertarian, deeply concerned with the extra-constitutional extension of government, yet when the issue of the constitituionality of these advisors was questioned, your first response wasn’t an analysis of the implications of Article II section 2 of the constitution, but “Bush did it too!”
Whether Bush did it or not is irrelevant. I believe the more-important discussion is on the mechanism of the Czars, not who is currently abusing it. To that end, I have three major concerns:
1) Certainly the vetting (or lack thereof) process is of concern. These advisers/envoys/directors/chairpersons/etc have access to and influence over significant federal mechanisms and sensitive information.
2) The roles these Czars play seem also to step on the responsibilities of already existing government bureaus and some of the czars look like they have duplicate roles of other czars.
3) The salaries of the czars ranges from around $100,000/yr up to almost a quarter million dollars annually (at least for the ones I could find public record on)LINK
To pay somewhere from $3-6 Million in salaries for folks that have not been vetted properly to do things that perhaps they should not be doing, without congressional oversight? No. Just no.
Rich Mitchell
The Plain, Hard Truth
An information engine for Conservatives
While it is true that the position of ‘czar’ has been a staple of American Presidential politics since WWII when Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed a host of new federal overseers caused the Washington Post to report that; “The sudden rush of “executive orders creating new czars to control various aspects of our wartime economy.”
These ‘appointments were solidified during the Nixon Administration when he appointed the first “Drug Czar”, Jerome Jaffe, in 1971. The history of such appointments is replete with episodes of Presidents appointing czars to oversee narrow aspects of administration policy.
The Sorento Administration is the first to hire so many (over thirty and still counting) and is also the first to seems to be the first to deliberately utilize this process to ‘circumvent’ the ‘advise & consent’ portion of the Constitution.
Valerie Jerrett’s comment that; “We’ve have been watching Van Jones for some years and are so happy to recruit him to the White house”; coupled with the fact that there was NO vetting process carried out by the White House at all suggests they ‘knew’ what they were hiring, and intentionally wanted the ability to plead ignorance if any of these ‘czars’ past lives became a topic of interest.
Van Jones; a self avowed Communist and revolutionary; also signed a ‘truther’ statement stating he believed the Bush Administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Van Jones wasn’t the only advocate of ‘social redistributive justice’ occupying a ‘czar-ship’ in the Sorento Administration; just the least sophisticated of the bunch.
If one closely looks at the past writings and speeches of several of Barry Sorento’s czars; Zeke Emanuel for instance; you’ll find a committed socialist. The Soreoto Administration has utilized the czar process to circumvent the Senate, and place the real policy-making power with unvetted, unaccountable statist bureaucrats: And leave the execution of those policies to the cabinet.
Mr. Mulligan –
Forgive me for being cynical about the motivations of those who bring up this issue. You worry about property rights? We’ve got decades of obvious historical examples of, say, the “drug czars” of the Clinton and Bush administrations supporting ‘asset forfeiture’ with all its abuses… but Google can’t find a single example of the phrase “asset forfeiture” appearing anywhere on intellectualconservative.com. Then there’s even the vetted appointees who’ve abused the law. (But you don’t know or associate with anyone under suspicion – that you know of, anyway – so that’s no skin off your nose.)
As Adlai Stevenson said, “In America, anybody can be president. That’s one of the risks you take.” Trusting Bush with excessive power is wrong, even if Bush himself were beyond reproach. He might be followed by someone who isn’t equally upstanding…
Obama’s been a fraction more sensible on drug issues. People are at least talking about how health care is paid for, now. Beyond that, I have a hard time seeing much improvement over Bush. The bits on torture, detention, and wiretapping have in many ways been much worse.
Like I said, if opposition to the ‘special envoys’ actually does end up restoring some restraints, that’s awesome. I’m not convinced it’s going to lead to that, though.
So you’re doubling down on “Bush did it too!”? That’s great, but it goes more toward my point than yours – you’re engaging in the same sort of selective mistrust that you accuse conservatives of. You’re concerned about the DEA seizing your property when they catch you with a gram of pot (what can I say, I’m a pretty boring guy. I don’t have reason to fear that either) or the NSA listening in on your phone calls during the course of a roving wiretap on a suspected terrorist, conservatives are concerned about the FCC stripping ownership rights from broadcasters or the BATFE confiscating their AR-15′s as part of a ban on “assault weapons”. This site doesn’t have many articles on asset forfeiture as it relates to drug crimes, your favorite blogs (excuse me if I’m being presumptuous – I’m referring to the blogs you most frequently link to in your comments. I’d guess by the frequency with which you refer to them that you are a regular reader) don’t have many articles on eminent domain or localism in broadcasting. Po-TA-to, po-TAH-to.
Trusting Bush with excessive power is wrong, even if Bush himself were beyond reproach. He might be followed by someone who isn’t equally upstanding…
Precisely. I couldn’t agree more. Liberals understood this concept very, very well during the Bush administration, but aren’t so concerned about it under the Obama administration. Conservatives understood this concept very, very well during the Clinton administration, but weren’t so concerned about it under the Bush administration. Everybody’s a libertarian when their opponent is in office. That’s why it was an affront to democracy itself that the governor had the authority to appoint a senator to a vacated seat in the state of Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was in office and it was imperative that special elections be held for new senators instead, but now that Teddy Kennedy is dead, leaving his Massachusetts senate seat vacant, and Deval Patrick is governor, it is an affront to the very rule of law that special elections are held to elect new senators to a vacated senate seat and it is imperative that the authority to appoint a senator to a vacated senate seat be restored to its proper and rightful place – the governor’s office. Forgive me for being cynical about the moral outrage of those who are cynical about the motivations of those who bring up this issue.
Mr. Mulligan – I’m not doubling down on “Bush did it too”, I’m pointing out that I mistrust Obama on the same grounds I mistrusted Bush.
(Oh, and I don’t have to worry about legitimate possession charges either. We both just have to worry about no-knock warrants and planted evidence and training mistakes.)
It’s true that, say, eminent domain isn’t mentioned much on scienceblogs.org, but 97 hits is still a lot better than 0. Until yesterday, that was the count Google could find of “asset forfeiture” on intellectualconservative.com. (BTW, one of the reasons I come here is because it’s a mistake to get all of your information from sources that agree with you in all particulars.)
I haven’t written anything – or even thought about – the relationship between governors and vacant Senate seats, though I’m sure there’s plenty of hypocrisy there.
If only there were a party that actually applied principles consistently, even when inconvenient. Haven’t seen one yet.
You seem to have a much deeper mistrust of particular administrations overseeing particular issues that are important to you – the very same selective outrage you are accusing conservatives of when they question Obama’s having 31 special advisors who are appointed by and responsible to only the president and are actively involved in creating, or at least shaping, policy. That’s all I’m saying. You are laboring to convince me that you mistrust government generally, but you can’t quite bring yourself to the same level of enthusiasm in your “criticism” of this administration as the last, nor, I suspect, would you be able to do so for the Clinton administration (even your harshest criticism of this administration is tacitly against the last). That’s because this administration, like Clinton’s, is not likely to craft policy that infringes on the liberties that you actually care about. No one, conservative or liberal, seems to care that much about the consolidation of federal authority unless and until it creeps into some area of policy that concerns them. I don’t necessarily care that you’re selectively libertarian, I just find it ironic that you are so perturbed by ostensibly the same behavior coming from conservatives. More than anything, I hope, more in the interest of your own sanity than anything else, that you don’t honestly consider yourself a libertarian in any sense other than party affiliation. The Libertarian party as a political body comes probably closer than any other to the consistency of principle you desire, but small “l” libertarian principles don’t mesh well with the positions and policy you’ve advocated here in the past.
To your other point, the number of hits for a keyword really wasn’t the point I was making, and I think you know that. The point was that liberals write about issues that interest liberals and conservatives write about issues that interest conservatives. Pots aren’t much superior to kettles.
You are laboring to convince me that you mistrust government generally, but you can’t quite bring yourself to the same level of enthusiasm in your “criticism” of this administration as the last…
Ah, I see. I’m criticizing both Bush and Obama on the same grounds, so I’m being inconsistent. Others here are newly criticizing Obama for something Bush did, too, and they are being consistent. Got it.
That’s because this administration, like Clinton’s, is not likely to craft policy that infringes on the liberties that you actually care about.
Oh, no, quite the opposite. I was willing to cut Obama a little slack at first, but he used that up fast. (As you know, since you commented on that.)
…small “l” libertarian principles don’t mesh well with the positions and policy you’ve advocated here in the past.
Examples?
Don’t have to look too hard. Private businesses like hospitals being forced to render services is hardly a libertarian idea.
Ah, I see. I’m criticizing both Bush and Obama on the same grounds
Well, not really, and that was kinda the point, but you obviously don’t get it and aren’t going to.
Others here are newly criticizing Obama for something Bush did, too, and they are being consistent.
Most here are criticizing Obama for things they first criticized Bush for. Or criticizing Obama on particulars where his policies, though they have the appearance of similarity, aren’t really the same as Bush’s.
I was willing to cut Obama a little slack at first, but he used that up fast. (As you know, since you commented on that.)
The post you linked to in support of this claim is yet another instance of you indignantly crying “Bush did it too!”. Obviously you would know your personal feelings better than I would, but if you are more upset at Obama than Bush your public comments don’t reflect it.
Examples?
Mountain Man’s point is a good start. The belief in healthcare as a right that underlies that position is even better. The belief in healthcare as a positive right that is obliged to be provided by public money that underlies that position is better still. That you would even contemplate such a notion is completely antithetical to actual libertarian ideology. I wouldn’t endeavor to go through years worth of articles searching for your comments to find specific examples (you’ll forgive me for not having them cataloged), but healthcare is hardly the only issue where your beliefs don’t exactly reflect free market capitalism and minarchist government.
Mr. Mulligan – The post you linked to in support of this claim is yet another instance of you indignantly crying “Bush did it too!”.
But I wasn’t excusing Obama by saying that – I was indicting Bush on exactly the same grounds Obama was being indicted on.
And I didn’t express belief in “healthcare as a right” – indeed, I couched my argument in economic terms. I contend that there are systems that provide comparable or better healthcare at much less overall cost than the system we have in the United States, and we would be wise to explore those plans and see what would work here. I’ve even suggested a starting point.
It’s actually Dr. Jackson who came closest to talking about health care as a ‘right’: “The indigent get basic care because we are a just society, and the lazy and shiftless get basic care because we are a just society.”
Man, I wish IC had a preview option. Have to get those dang href tags closed. Two other links there:
Another “economic terms” link: http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/08/22/why-obama-is-failing/#comment-79477
Starting point: http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/what_is_healthcare_like_Neth.php
I’m sure you can see how your response might give the impression that you are more concerned with the fact that Bush did the same thing than that the thing itself has been done. It’s easy to mistake for a defense too, since Obama himself frequently employs the same language.
From a libertarian economic standpoint the argument for universal healthcare is even worse. And it is still, whether you realize it or not, hinged upon a fundamentally non-libertarian conception of rights. That you obviously do not understand how deeply at odds such a thing is with fundamental libertarian concepts is proof enough that you aren’t much for libertarian ideology. We’re really getting into the trees instead of the forest here now, anyway. Suffice it to say that advocating legalized pot and hating the Bush administration isn’t all it takes to be a “libertarian” in terms of anything more than party affiliation. I’ve pretty well lost interest in this one now, so I’ll leave you with that.