Does this imply that the entire population is not presently enslaved?

No. They’ve been slaves since Lincoln.

“…the entire population enslaved…”

Does this imply that the entire population is not presently enslaved? What, precisely, are the ways in which Lincoln is worse than Bush? Yes, he drafted. Bush clearly is ready to do it. Yes, he lied about reasons for a war. Bush’s war, it is true, isn’t against Americans, but so what? Is a President a better man because he kills those with funny last names (I include Iraqi soldiers, by the way, just as much as civilians)?

Did Lincoln tap our phones? Did he fight to disarm the public? Did his invasion of American’s personal liberties touch that of Bush? Of course, he had less technology and thus less ability. So what? He would have liked to be as bad as Bush, I’m sure, but Bush has actually done it. Let’s judge them on what they’ve actually ‘accomplished.’

600,000 dead and millions crippled on Lincoln’s watch; the entire population enslaved…

Bush is still “bush league” in comparison. (But maybe he’ll yet nuke Iran)

“wars and foreign policies that benefit favored rent-seekers, tax reductions for the elite, a lockdown of government information, aggressive action against whistleblowers, and radical gerrymandering to lock in electoral advantage.

The Republicans are now much worse than the Democrats ever were, since they are essentially unchecked, and are selling out the nation to the highest bidder for private gain. This is masked by an unending “war on terror” and by divisive social policies that pander to the fears of social conservatives that the moral fabric of American is under attack from gays, evolutionists, Islamofascists and green/red enviros. This fear-pandering and defense spending helps ensure strong support from the military, which reinforces the relative attractiveness of Republicans to most voters. We have an extremely corrupt, cynical and dangerous Administration.”

I would agree with those who are saying that Bush is the worst president in history; only the most passionate of partisans can deny the many ways is which Bush, the neocons and the Republican Congress have screwed this country for short-term partisan and private gain. Bush, Cheney and their administration have their hands on the ship of state and have been driving it at full speed onto the rocks and pose a threat to us all.

That’s why droves have been deserting from the right. Recent defectees include Larry Wilkerson, Matthew Continetti, George Will, Andrew Sullivan, Francis Fukuyama, William F. Buckley, Bruce Bartlett, Bob Barr, Brent Scowcroft, Richard Haass and Stephen”>http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2006/04/buckley_on_bush.html”>Stephen Bainbridge.

These defectees join other longtime dissenters from the right, such as Clyde Prestowitz and Paul”>http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts-arch.html”>Paul Craig Roberts.

The judgments of these and other people are what is fuelling calls for impeachment from Carl Bernstein and Harpers“>http://www.harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html”>Harpers and Elizabeth Holtzman, and has led to resolutions for impeachment from seven towns in Vermont, as well as the introduction of joint resolutions for impeachment in the state legislatures of Illinois, California and Vermont under Section 603 of Thomas Jefferson’s Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives, which “allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature.”

None of the other serious Worst President Ever candidates are in the Bush league – the key distinguishing factors are that they were President (i) at times of smaller but growing American power, (ii) when the comparative and absolute size of the federal government was much smaller, and (iii) generally with a power split in Congress. As a result, their incompetence, corruption or partisanship was relatively insignificant, was partially checked and did not have lasting consequences.

Bush, on the other hand is at the helm when (i) the US is the only global superpower but our relative power is at an inflection point (more below), (ii) the absolute and relative size of federal government is huge and growing, and (iii) Republicans control Congress as well. As a result, the level of damage that Bush and the Republicans have been able to do to American interests in five years is at orders of magnitude greater than other bad presidents.

We are the only global superpower (with defense spending as large as the rest of the world combined), but we face strategic challenges from a resurgent China, India, Brazil and others, we are at an era of peak oil with significant energy challenges, the world is globally vulnerable to intractable ethnic/religious tensions that grow with economic disparities and to terrorist acts relating to such tensions, there is rising anti-US populism in Latin America, rising ethnic and religious tensions in the US, and global commons and the environment in the developing world are under pressure from continuing population growth, industrialization and consumer demand.

These problems have all been ignored and exacerbated by an Administration that professes a Maicheaen worldview but acts either for short-term political gain or for long-term purposes that are not discussed publicly. Our allies are dismayed, and our strategic adversaries comforted by our mistakes and our shockingly autocratic and anti-democratic policies. We have seen startling decay in our budget and current account deficits, fuelled by uncontrolled, pork-barrel spending for favored corporate interests and creation of new entitlements designed to get votes. Rather than seriously addressing our long-term economic welfare, this Administration simply prefers to spend our money, give tax breakes to friends and to charge future generations for the difference (our accumulated federal debt is to the tune of $150,000 per person). Gerrymandering rigidifies the Republican grip on power, who continue to divide us domestically and to seek wars abroad for domestic political gain. Income disparities in the US, long the greatest of any developed country, continue to grow.

Mike, sorry, but even with acknowledging the venality and hypocrisy of Democrats, right now I don’t think they hold a candle to the Republicans.

Also, the Republicans fiscal intemperance has not gone unnoticed by the conservative base – look for a low turnout in November. Although I have always voted for Libertarian candidates on principle, I am tempted to hold my nose and vote for Barbara Lee just to show my displeasure at the execrable job the Republicans have done – I can still vote Libertarian on the ballot initiatives.

This law may be well-motivated, but it is choking off financing and entrepreneurship, and further entrenching corporate statism.

You further state that “to say that U.S. intervention in the middle east is about cheap oil is just leftist nonsense.” Sorry, but I think that (as I keep saying to Reisman) neither the name-calling nor the use of strawmen helps our understanding – it might be satisfying and simpflying, but doesn’t help understanding, per se. No one here said that our policies in the ME are about cheap oil – I made these more nuanced points:

1. “internationally, the largest deposits have been located in places with weak governments and/or property rights regimes, and thus subject to “homesteading” by large foreign oil companies, supported by home governments as part of a big power game.

That big power game of course still going on in the Middle East and elsewhere. Cheney and Bush like to play this game and to brandish our military power; perhaps they think this will benefit America, but it very clearly benefits the oil firms, construction firms and defense industry, as well as the political elite who are connected to it. These people don’t really care if the rest of the world is in flames – in some ways it actually pays political dividends to have a war.”

and

2. “Keeping gas cheap at the pump is part if the strategy to keep Americans docile; that the world price of oil has doubled since the Iraq invasion, coupled with the effects of Katrina and Wilma is upsetting the political apple cart (while still benefitting the oil firms and the elite who share the spoils).”

In other words, there is alot of rent-seeking behavior at work here, combined with convenient smokescreens about wars on terror (now apparently unending), promoting and defending democracy, and vote-buying at home – made even more clear in the latest Republican gas rebate proposal.

There are also serious issue about the struggle with big powers over cheap and vital resources in third countries which has been going on for a long time. In the ME, we were largely concerned about the USSR, but now we worry about both China and Russia.

Our history of expansion of bases in the ME, Balkans and Caucausus was motivated by containing the USSR and securing oil; rent-seeking by defense corporations and use of the military for political gain has kept the machine in motion, so that now foreign policy is largely run through the DOD.

The Republicans are now much worse than the Democrats ever were, since they are essentially unchecked, and are selling out the nation to the highest bidder for private gain. This is masked by an unending “war on terror” and by divisive social policies that pander to the fears of social conservatives that the moral fabric of American is under attack from gays, evolutionists, Islamofascists and green/red enviros. This fear-pandering and defense spending helps ensure strong support from the military, which reinforces the relative attractiveness of Republicans to most voters. We have an extremely corrupt, cynical and dangerous Administration.

Tom

Correct. I was focused only on the supply side at that moment.

Government certainly restricts supply and stimulates demand in almost every industry.

“why has no oil company built a new refinery in 30 years?”

Because prisons are not a friendly place.

“could it be that they know that we will soon be reaching peak so no reason to build for production that won’t be there?”

No. That would be the result of collusion between oil companies – so obviously if there was no legal barrier, someone would have built them, regardless of what the oil companies thought. Also they would have cheated on each other anyway.

You are the first that I’ve seen that compares(obliquely) the Gov’t's prosecution of Enron and that of Micheal Milken.

Pull Enron On-Line into view.

Do you think that Enron and MM were taken out due to the seriouly disruptive potential, of their business models, to status quo, of the Corp side, of GovCorp?

Curiously…

Also, if this: “One final point. Should congress pass a windfall profit tax, the money will be coming out of the average Joe’s pension and retirement funds and his insurance premiums, since pension funds, mutual funds and insurance companies own the majority of stock in Exxon-Mobil.”–doesn’t give an accurate insight into how the vast majority is actively complicit in fueling its own demise, I don’t know what will.

Thanks for the points…

That We continue, in our Hubris, to make the mundane, complex, We, in our self-flagellation are guilty of an ill-timed impersonation of Nero.

But this succinct statement of purpose omits a great deal.

It is not democracy, per se, that Bush is interested in exporting. Nor even freedom. There are plenty of places around the world with far less than Iraq had.

He wants to export the same style of state-capitalism that he is promoting in the US. Protectionism, subsidies, certain kinds of regulations (but not others!). Just like Lincoln.

How does pointing out Ford’s (or Firestone’s or Bush’s) affinity for state-capitalism “copy the left”? I realize that the real problem with the Unholy Alliance between business and government is with the government’s side of the relationship. But state aggression that favors a business is just as objectionable as state aggression that favors the Left’s constituency.

The Left certainly has its own special brand of protectionism and subsidies, of course. The term “free market” is considered a punchline and/or a curse among Leftists. But the Right is just as bad. While there are a few self-described conservatives who are very receptive to the free market, they are largely ignorant of economic history, and tend to believe in many of the same kinds of governmental interferences that Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln introduced.

That is why this fight over gasoline between the Right and the Left is going to be like two wolves fighting over dinner.

Henry Ford had many faults (for example his support of government road building – and I certainly agree with attacking that Henry Clay Whig, Lincoln, over internal improvements), his antisemitism and his believe in credit money expansion, but he did not dominate the nation.

This was shown in the market – when G.M. got bigger than Ford. And in politics -when F.D.R. and his minions shoved unions (and the rest of it) down Henry Ford’s throat with their regulations.

As for oil.

One thing that George Bush is not guilty of is a war for “cheap oil”.

Not only have his wars made oil more expensive – but he does not even want cheap oil.

When his old speech writer (David Fromm) suggested a cheap oil policy Bush rejected the idea totally.

United States intervention (under Bush or before Bush) is nothing to do with cheap oil – the U.S. would have hardly supported Israel if this was the policy.

U.S. policy would have been about making friends with the Muslims – even if it meant that the Jews had to die.

By the way I am not in favour of the policy of supporting Israel (or any nation). But to say that U.S. intervention in the middle east is about cheap oil is just leftist nonsense.

I wonder how many people voted for Bush in November 2004 because they were sick of hearing stuff like “war for oil”.

President Bush’s Wilsonian “war for democracy” idea may be misguided (I certainly think it is misguided), but he clearly believes in it.

And saying it is all about oil just irritates people who can sense that it is not.

Of course oil is important. And of course there was personal hatred for the government of Iraq (because of the plot to kill the first President Bush amongst other things).

But it is not all (or even mainly) about oil.

Oil is available in large quantities under the sea, which in many places has been too expensive to drill. But, technologies are getting better, and as oil becomes more expensive, these techniques will be utilized.

Until oil is no longer pushed by governments (except Japan, who already is becomming a leader in solar-power), the push for keeping oil production at high levels will continue.

why has no oil company built a new refinery in 30 years?

could it be that they know that we will soon be reaching peak so no reason to build for production that won’t be there?

True, but you are ignoring the elephant in the living room, so to speak: massive road subsidies, at every level of government. They made America car-dependent.

There was an unintentionally funny ad on TV a few years ago, by Ford Motor Co. It showed the current CEO, a descendent of Henry Ford, talking wistfully about the days when his grandfather (?) was running the company.

There was a line went something like: “They would all have lunch on the lawn together — my grandfather (Ford), Harvey Firestone, and whoever happened to be president at the time.”

That puts it in perspective: Ford and Firestone were the important ones. Presidents come and go, almost like the president was an afterthought. Ford and Firestone were dictating policy.

Of course, like most things that are deeply wrong in America, this particular problem can be traced to Abraham Lincoln. He rammed the “internal improvements” (i.e., road subsidy) agenda into existence, which established not only the road network, but also the precedent of state-capitalism and protectionism that oil and car manufacturers then latched onto and have continued to expand.