David McElroy

People frequently tell me that they don’t really support either the Republican or Democratic candidate for president, but that they’re choosing the lesser of the two evils. That’s what conservatives tended to say in 2008 when they voted for the contemptible John McCain.

It’s true that Barack Obama hasn’t been great for people who love liberty, but it’s just as true that McCain would have been a disaster. Just look what he’s trying to do right now in the U.S. Senate.

McCain is pushing a bill that would give the president the power to snatch any American of his choosing and send him to a military prison for a military trial — just by claiming he’s a possible terrorist. That means if a president doesn’t like you or me or anyone else, all he has to do is tell the military to collect us and send us to Guantanamo or anywhere else of his choosing. On the floor of the Senate today, McCain is reacting angrily to efforts by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul to delete this insane clause.

This is the sort of thing we would expect in the sort of dictatorships that we’ve traditionally opposed. However you try to dress it up as being about national security, this bill is evil. And McCain is the biggest backer of the bill.

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I’ve been reading your articles in the last two weeks and find myself agreeing with what you say. Have you ever thought about running for office? We need people like you!

Have I thought about it? Yes. Do I have any intention of doing it now? No.

There was a time in the past when I believed it was possible to bring about change through the electoral political system, so I was seriously interested in running for office. Or maybe I was simply still egotistical enough to believe that maybe I could make a difference. Either way, I don’t believe now it’s possible to solve the problems, both because of the size of the problems and because of the nature of the voting public.

Even if I thought it might be possible — in the pragmatic sense — to fix things, I’ve come to the conclusion that the entire system of choosing a person to “run the country” is pretty darned immoral. (I know we have Congress to technically make the laws, but you know what I mean.) I’m happy to have you join us. If you stick around (and maybe poke through older articles), I think my position on this will become more clear. Either way, you flatter me by suggesting the possibility. Thanks.

I am currently a sophomore enrolled at [Big Name] University. I am currently in a Political Science course, in which I have to write a paper explaining the purpose of radical thought in our political tradition. I read a few of your columns on radical ideas and I was curious to see what role you think radical thought plays in U.S politics. Thanks in advance.

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Never let it be said that Barack Obama hasn’t delivered on any promises. He promised more jobs, and he’s delivered. The only problem is that those jobs are the ones we want the least — government employees, the kind we have to pay for.

Economist Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University put together this chart showing the trend of federal employment over the last decade. You can see the sharp uptick in the last three years. She comments:

“On net, since January 2008, federal employment has increased by 85,000 – counter to the movements of employment in state and local governments and in the private sector.  In aggregate statistics such as the unemployment rate, this increase has obscured harsh private sector job losses.”

The good news — if you want to look at it that way — is that 85,000 additional people have jobs. The bad news is that taxpayers are having to pay for these unproductive jobs. The further bad news is that the productive part of the economy is doing even worse than the unemployment numbers suggest, because this unproductive hiring masks the number of true job losses.

When are the neo-Keynesians calling the shots in Washington going to accept that their economic voodoo doesn’t work?