David McElroy

When Barack Obama was elected president, many liberals were ecstatic, because it would mean the end of the George W. Bush policies and practices that they hated so much. With few exceptions, though, Obama and Bush have pursued courses that are remarkably similar.

When Obama said at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, “I have put forward a plan that will get our troops out [of Iraq] by the end of 2009,” liberals believed him. He represented “hope” and “change.” But the truth is that we live in a one-party state that simply presents two faces at election time. Despite major rhetorical differences and a few remaining real differences, what you get under a Republican president isn’t a lot different from what you get under a Democratic president. (Health care is the biggest one I can think of, but Bush was responsible for the biggest single long-term expansion of government since the ’60s when he pushed a program to give free prescription drugs to older people.)

The Humble Libertarian has put together a list of 100 similarities between Bush and Obama in office, some major and some minor. Can you read this list and believe that Bush and Obama are substantively different on the very many issues?

For conservatives, here’s the real question. Do you honestly believe that the next Republican president is going to give you something substantially different from what you got from Bush? Why is it that so many still believe the political system is going to deliver change?

If you have a clear deed  to property, you own it outright and can do whatever you want with it. Unless, of course, the state wants it to build a school or public building. Or to give it to a developer to build shopping centers and fancier homes. Or to build a stadium for a baseball team.

Since that’s true, do you really own property in this country? Or do you just have the use of it until a politician’s whim decides to put it to another use?

Here in Birmingham, the city government is planning to build a new stadium and “entertainment district” that will center around the return of a minor league baseball team that wisely fled to the suburbs 20 years ago. Mayor William Bell said Monday that the city is ready to use eminent domain to force property owners to sell.

In Latin, eminent domain means “supreme lordship,” and that’s exactly what it means in English, too. The state owns you and the property that’s allegedly yours. The state is the supreme lord over you. Don’t forget that. But also don’t forget why you’ll be better off without the state.

When George W. Bush was president, the anti-war left spoke and demonstrated strongly against U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that Barack Obama is president — and is bombing Libya and continuing to fight in Afghanistan — most of those people are strangely quiet. Could it have anything to do with their loyalty to the Democratic Party?

Before Bush was president, conservatives loudly complained about federal spending and any expansion of the welfare state. But once Bush was in office — and expanded government massively through foreign invasions, military spending and a brand-new program to give prescription drugs to old folks — those same people mostly kept quiet. Could it have anything to do with their loyalty to the Republican Party?

It’s no secret that politics is filled with hypocrisy and positions that shift depending on who says what and who holds power at the moment. Still, we like to believe that we’re intellectually honest and it’s the other person who’s being the hypocrite.

In some ways, it’s easier for me to be consistent, because I never have to worry about “my allies” getting elected to anything. For those of us who’ve given up on politics and oppose the whole stinking system, it’s easier to say, “A pox on both your houses.” I wonder, though, at the ability of the human mind to justify things when I see libertarians compromising their beliefs for possible short-term election gains. (Did anyone mention Bob Barr?)

Keep Reading