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"Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent - the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free."
--H.L. Mencken
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Thoughts on the Elections from Left, Right, and...Other.
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Election Results Provide a Boost to Big Government
A timeless classic from Harry Browne
It may seem that you have to vote for the lesser of evils among the major-party candidates.
But since government grew just as rapidly with Ronald Reagan as president as with Bill Clinton or George W. Bush in the White House, and since the Republican Congress expanded government at the same speed as the Democratic Congress, it's obvious that your vote doesn't change anything.
There is no lesser of evils between the two major parties.
Your vote achieves only one thing: It tells the people you voted for that you love big government - that there's no program they can support that's so bad that you won't vote for them anymore.
Your vote provided a big boost for big government.
Is that what you wanted?
(read more here)
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How would our silent soldiers cast their final ballot?
by Ben Tanosborn
Shouldn't these near-5,000 dead soldiers have some say in this matter? Shouldn't their recommendation to our own consciences count? Is it victory they are clamoring for from their graves. or is it peace and goodwill they would wish to remind us of? Would they support us in electing, first and foremost, a new commander-in-chief, a Caesar for the empire, or would they prefer the new president be more a peacemaker-in-chief, a steward for the real needs of the nation?
One cannot help but intuitively know that if these silent soldiers could cast a final ballot in this election, knowing what they now know, and irrespective of their families' honest but misguided patriotism, they would not want another warmonger for a leader; no, not anymore.
(read more here)
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Will President Obama feel the pressure?
by Mickey Z
Everywhere I went on Election Day, I was asked by friend and stranger alike: "Did you vote?" Once the polling booths closed, I could be 100% certain I'd not be asked another politically motivated question by such people for another four years. No one would be rushing up to me and demanding to know if I was planning to do anything about, say, FISA, the death penalty, the PATRIOT Act, homelessness, or factory farming.
The election is over. Obama has won. For 99% of the Left, that means their work is done until 2012. It's time to gloat and reap all the rewards, right?
My prediction: The only pressure that will be consistently exerted by those on the Left will be the pressure of their soft butts on their couch cushions as they sit back to smugly watch Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Maher.
My advice: Take up yoga, lefties, because you're gonna need an awful lot of flexibility to perform the contortions necessary to explain and justify President Obama's actions over the next four years .
(read more here)
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Mock the Vote!
by David Heleniak
Wise up, America. There's nothing special about 50% plus one. Truth and justice cannot be determined by a show of hands. We are not the government. Voting is not a sacrament. And as it stands today, when we're only given a choice between two Establishment-approved candidates, voting is a joke.
Voltaire, the undisputed leader of the Enlightenment, used humor and wit as two of his primary weapons, and, as Robert Ingersoll remarked, "In the presence of absurdity he laughed." It was largely by making the divine right of kings a laughing stock that the Enlightenment writers destroyed it. It is time for us to do the same thing to the divine right of the majority.
This year, vote laughing or stay home .
(read more here)
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Obama: America's "Second Chance" or is it its Last?
by Maher Osseiran
Obama is still clinging to 9/11 and describes the war in Afghanistan as the "just war", and thinks of Pakistan, the fuse, as the source of the problem. He is a proponent of pursuing the Taliban across the Pakistani-Afghani borders and engaging them in Pakistan with or without the consent of Pakistani authorities.
An Obama presidency, as I see it now, will not be a presidency of peace; it will be a presidency of wars sold as "just wars" of necessity in the Greater Middle East. After all, there is very little difference between Brzezinski's vision and that of the neocons, the only difference is in the execution.
(read more here)
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Published 5 days a week, Populist Party Commentary and the Populist Party blog both strive to provide an alternative point of view to current events and political theory.
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In the spirit of liberty,
From All of Us on the Populist Party team
Copyright 2008, The Populist Party of America
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