McCain and Clinton are Stupid

John McCain and Hillary Clinton have found a way to simultaneously show their complete inability to come up with real solutions to the substantial problems facing the nation, and shamelessly pander to clueless voters. McCain and Clinton recently came out in favor of a summer-long suspension of the 18 cent-per-gallon federal gas tax, which would save most Americans a whopping $30 over the course of the summer.

As David Weigel at Reason Magazine put it, the entire thing is nothing but "phony populism in the service of a 'tax cut' that would fund one meal for two at Applebees, which may or may not include dessert." When the libertarians at Reason come out against a tax break, you know it has to be completely worthless.

The "tax break" looks even sillier when one considers that gas prices throughout most of America have risen by almost double this 18 cent amount in the past 2 weeks, and look to continue rising.

To his credit, Barack Obama opposes the measure as feckless, and pointed out that the suspension would deprive states of funds for road repairs, raise demand for imported gas, and do nothing to address the broader issues of rising energy costs and dependence on foreign oil.

To top it all off, Clinton accused Obama of being "out of touch" with middle-class Americans because he doesn't support the measure. Clinton's cynical manipulation and complete lack of principle are at this point virtually beyond parody. She is a walking, sniper-fire-dodging caricature of a lying, amoral, power-hungry politician.

As for McCain, this just seems like a sad attempt to bolster his conservative credentials by "lowering taxes". Whatever his faults, Obama gets credit for largely avoiding this sort of deceitful nonsense.

Politics at its finest.

Jeremiah Wright: Fool and Egotist

If it was not already clear before his speech before the National Press Club on Monday, it is now undeniably obvious that Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- Barack Obama's pastor -- is not only a quite fanatical character, he is also a self-aggrandizing egotist of the worst kind. His speech, which merely reiterated his most hateful and demagogic sentiments in a disgustingly self-congratulatory manner, was truly cringe-inducing.

There is no way Wright could have been unaware that this speech would be greatly harmful to Obama's candidacy, which begs the question: is Wright unhappy with Obama because of his previous comments distancing himself from the pastor? Was this display some sort of revenge against Obama's moderate stances? Alternatively, is Wright just so totally self-absorbed and small-minded that he has no qualms sabotaging the first viable black presidential candidacy in American history in order to elevate himself to some mediocre level of celebrity along the lines of Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan?

I have to admit that, although I had previously acquainted myself with Wright's beliefs, his speech on Monday was the first time I saw him televised, and was thus the first chance I had to witness his shocking level of self-love. It is difficult to explain his demeanor, with its combination of unreasoning ignorance and total, foolish assuredness. It seemed he was going down a checklist of wild assertions -- for example, that the U.S. government invented HIV as a method of genocide against African Americans -- solely for the purpose of maximizing shock value. Wright struck me as a sort of Methodist Howard Stern, nearly devoid of thought and concerned only with making a spectacle of himself.

After all this, Wright astoundingly claimed that his thoughts were representative of the "black church", whatever that is supposed to mean. If Wright meant that he spoke for all church-going African Americans, he is not only totally self-absorbed, he is totally deluded as well. To suggest that all African Americans share his unthinking, paranoid beliefs is truly insulting to millions of intelligent, educated African Americans who no doubt cringed at his speech.

Before witnessing this recent speech, I viewed Wright as being on par with the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of the nation. While Wright shares their unthinking, delusional, and offensively close-minded nature, he stands apart from them in his audacious extension of these attributes to the most extreme level.

I will leave it to others to determine exactly how close Obama is or was to Reverend Wright, and the degree to which Obama shares the Reverend's views, if he shares them at all -- I claim possession of no special information on the matter. It is remarkable, however, that Obama was ever drawn to Wright, and that he ever spent Sundays listening to the "wisdom" of a man so totally beneath him.

Excerpts of Wright's speech can be seen here, and Obama's denunciation of Wright following the speech can be read here.

A Tyrant by Any Other Name

Since his election as president of Venezuela in 1999, Hugo Chavez has drawn fierce criticism from many American conservatives, primarily because of his anti-American agitation and friendly relations with virtually all of America's "enemies" abroad. Chavez cultivated close relationships with Syria, Iran, Cuba and North Korea, among others -- all states viewed with suspicion if not outright hostility by the Bush administration.

So great has been the reaction against him by conservatives, televangelist and pundit Pat Robertson even suggested that the U.S. government should send agents to assassinate Chavez -- "take him out" in Robertson's words.

Chavez is an extremely charismatic leader, and has built a strong, dedicated following among many Venezuelans. His supporters even adopted his name as their political identity, calling themselves "chavistas". Chavez managed to win over much of the American left with his talk of "anti-imperialism" and "democratic socialism", but the reality of his presidency and policies should be much more worrisome to both liberals and conservatives than this rhetoric would suggest.

Chavez's populist message centers around his interpretation of Bolivarianism. Bolivarianism is based on the ideas of Simon Bolivar, the 18th-century leader and namesake of Bolivia known as "El Libertador" for his role in the liberation of numerous South American countries from Spanish colonialism.

In theory, Chavez's philosophy emphasizes economic and political independence, patriotism, government transparency, and socio-economic equality through "humanist" socialism. In practice, however, Chavez's government is hostile to dissent, democracy, and civil liberties.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch documented numerous human rights violations by Chavez's administration, including the killing of 14 demonstrators and the wounding of an additional 200 during an anti-Chavez rally in early 2004.

During political upheaval in 2002, the Chavez government forced all broadcast media to cease regular reports and air pro-Chavez propaganda, though Chavez supporters have pointed to possible involvement of the media in a coup attempt as justification for this suppression of free speech.

Under Chavez, Venezuela dropped to a dismal ranking of 115th out of 168 in the press organization Reporters Without Borders' worldwide press freedom rankings. Furthermore, organizations such as the International Press Institute and Human Rights Watch condemned Chavez for strictly limiting press freedom and censoring criticism of the government. In 2007, Chavez refused to renew the operating license of Venezuela's second largest TV channel, forcefully closing the station down, because of their criticisms of his administration.

During his entire presidency, Chavez has worked to secure virtually unchecked executive power for himself. According to Amnesty International, he significantly eroded the independence of the judiciary and placed himself in control of the body that supervises elections. In an attempt to circumvent the presidential term limit of 6 years, Chavez put forth a referendum for a constitutional amendment -- which was only narrowly defeated -- that would amend almost 70 articles of the constitution and do away with term limits.

Chavez's record on civil liberties is equally appalling. According to numerous human rights organizations, he has jailed and tortured political opponents and encouraged voter intimidation. Through various means, he succeeded in gaining control of any government institutions that would provide a counter to these abuses.

Even in his attempts to transform Venezuela into an equitable socialist state, Chavez has failed quite miserably. Chavez portrays himself as a champion of the poor and a strong proponent of progressive policies, accounting in large part for his popularity among American liberals. Despite this, rampant corruption has prevented enormous state oil-income from being translated into anything but very limited gains for the nation's poor.

It should thus be clear that Chavez's high-sounding rhetoric and appeals to popular liberal sentiment amount to little more than demagogy, and that he in reality personifies the most extreme excesses of authoritarian government. More important than his fraternization with the "Axis of Evil" is his willingness to violate the most basic of civil and human rights. The cult of personality that surrounds Chavez and his seemingly endless appetite for power should be truly troubling for Americans of all political persuasions.

This self-styled champion of democracy is in fact quite the opposite. For all Chavez's talk of democracy and anti-fascism, it is striking how closely his perverse populism, cynical demagogy, executive excesses, and outright hostility to freedom resemble the worst totalitarian and fascist regimes of the past century.

Obama: "Left-Libertarian"?

Until very recently, I had assessed Barack Obama as an essentially Keynesian, Bill Clinton-style moderate-liberal on economic questions. Without a doubt, his statements do echo many of the core themes of the "Third Way" popularized in the 90s by Clinton. This view sees free markets as fundamentally good, and as essential to prosperity and progress. However, it also sees an active government as necessary to "tame" capitalism by increasing fairness, stability, and general welfare. I still think this captures much of what Obama has said about economics, but it seems Obama's economics may also have a more original, libertarian side than the moderate-Democratic "Third Way".

On the one hand, Obama has made statements praising classic New Deal welfare programs that are fundamentally hostile to free markets and economic liberty (for example, see this Obama speech at Cooper Union). On the other hand, a number of libertarians seem to be pleasantly surprised with Obama's voluntarist and laissez-faire leanings. For example, Obama and his lead economic advisor Austin Goolsbee have come up with some interesting and quite libertarian approaches to questions such as income equality that have usually been answered with the heavy hand of un-libertarian state programs. Among these are Goolsbee/Obama's emphasis on access to higher education as a means of decreasing poverty, and their embrace of economic globalization.

While Obama is still more a Democrat than a libertarian, his economic views are very refreshing when viewed next to those of Hillary Clinton. It seems Clinton makes a point of always championing the least libertarian means of achieving any goal. For example, she has used misinterpretations of the work of economist Paul Samuelson to justify isolationist criticisms of international trade, outsourcing, and other hallmarks of globalizing economic progress. She even went so far as to question the validity of comparative advantage -- one of the most basic economic principles stating that countries can benefit from trade by specializing in certain areas of production -- relying on a shamefully ignorant view of economics. Clinton's silly economic views have already gotten her in trouble with European nations who fear her economic isolationism could hurt both American and European economies.

There is some disagreement among libertarians regarding Obama's libertarian credentials, but blogger Nick Bradley summed up the issue quite well:

"Obama does offer a few market-friendly programs, such as increased child care and education tax credits (which Paul also supports), exempt payroll taxes from the first $6,500 of earned income, exempt seniors making under $50,000 from income taxes, supports clean coal (most democrats despise hydrocarbon energy production in general), supports carbon sequestration (more market-friendly than carbon regulation), limits agricultural subsidies to farms earning under $250,000 a year, will reinstate PAYGO, has pledged to get all troops out of Iraq within 16 months, opposes war with Iran, and supports the Genocide Intervention Network, which uses private money and nonstate social action to stymie genocide. [...]

In the grand scheme of things, Obama is far less statist than Hillary (socialism at home, hegemony abroad) and McCain (fascism at home, endless warfare abroad)."

It will be very interesting to see how other libertarians compare Obama and McCain as the elections draw near. For now, I'll leave you with Obama's own summation of his economic views, from the speech at Cooper Union referenced above:

"I do not believe that government should stand in the way of innovation, or turn back the clock on an older era of regulation. But I do believe that government has a role to play in advancing our common prosperity by providing stable macroeconomic and financial conditions for sustained growth, by demanding transparency, and by ensuring fair competition in the marketplace. Our history should give us confidence that we don't have to choose between an oppressive, government-run economy and a chaotic unforgiving capitalism."