A Presidential Platform 

Editorial

      In March of this year I spent two weeks in the hospital for congestive heart failure, plus a few other complications. While in intensive care I thought it would be fun if I were to run for the Presidency of the United States in 2004. My platform on the domestic side would consist of two items. The first item would be the cancellation of tax-exempt status for all presidential palaces. They exist to flatter the president who promotes them and are an attempt to rewrite history. The history of a presidency can best be gained by independent research in the public sector, which is always adequate. The second item of my presidential platform would be to extend tax-exempt status to any village, town, or city that erects a statue or other memorial to nurses. My nurse at a critical time was Amanda, a blonde with curly hair on top of her head who was quite bossy. She was supposed to look after some in addition to me, but she chose to look after me and was at my side for sixteen hours! I never saw her again after that one night, and I might have survived without her, but I am in her debt.  The contrast between the public servant who builds a memorial to himself and the nurse who lives for another brings us back to reality and the true knowledge of service, the difference between right and wrong, heroism and vanity.

      Others than nurses are good, faithful people, of course. The purpose of my suggestion is to underline the value of good people and their need in public as well as private life.

      Why do people run for public office? Granting that sincere men are in public office, a love of glory and power has an attraction in the pursuit and holding of office. I know several former politicians whose lives lacked purpose when they lost, though they were productive citizens before they became public servants. There is an intoxication with being called Senator, or The Honorable Henry Bigwig, writing legislation which commands people to do this or that, or making a speech and telling your audience what you have done and contemplate doing. This is heady stuff. Then, legislators determine their income rather than get it the way we do, paying themselves well, including health insurance and retirement income. It is not difficult to understand their nostalgia for days of glory when they are out office.

      The love of glory shows clearly in the dictatorships of our time. Pictures, paintings, statues of Saddam Hussein covered the landscape of Iraq while monuments and palaces for Hussein and his cronies, of which there were at least sixty, cost around $2.5 billion a year for maintenance. So it was with Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Fidel Castro.

      There was a time when good manners were lauded, if not in fact, in theory. Many who worked hard and mastered a problem had the hope they would be recognized and invited to make a contribution. It is not so now. The pusher is the winner. Ambition rules the day. One with modesty and talent is thought a threat. It is thought that if the field is open and full play is given to ambition, the best will come to the top. That may be true in basketball, but not in life. If ambition is king, and if glory and/or power is the reward, life will be without wisdom and peace.

      The Founding Fathers of this country did not believe in party politics. They established a republic of representative government in the context of the rule of law, the sacredness of contracts, freedom tempered with checks and balances. They did not believe in democracy, knowing democracy leads to dictatorship. That was common historical knowledge, described by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago. Thomas Jefferson, a member of Washington’s cabinet, was enthusiastic for the French Revolution and wanted to establish a democracy based on the example of that dreadful revolution. He did all he could to undermine the presidency of George Washington. He may have tempered his ideas as the horrors of democratic France became obvious, but he did not swerve from his democratic goal and became our country’s first agitator, the father of party politics. He had redeeming qualities, but he was an agitator. Jefferson was without financial common sense, so extravagant he died bankrupt.

      In our day, and in every day, people are divided into two groups. One group accumulates wealth, always a minority, and the other group, always a majority, wants the money of the minority. Contrary to popular opinion, the wealthy are the greatest friends of the poor. What do they do with their money? They spend it, which creates employment; they invest it, which creates employment; they save it, which gives the poor capital they can borrow; they squander it with stupidity, which transfers their wealth to those more deserving. Abraham Lincoln told us to admire, not hate, the man who lived in the big house on the top of the hill. Without Lincoln’s wisdom, everyone loses their wealth and there is no alternative save to be managed by politicians.

      In foreign policy I see a limited role for the United Nations. It is folly to be associated with an organization whose chairman of the commission of human rights is the dictator of a country committed to terrorism.

      I see little to no reason to become involved in the internal affairs of Europe. The countries of Europe have formed the European Union for two reasons. Because they have been fighting each other for hundreds of years, they have decided the fighting will stop only if they are absorbed into one body. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. If they have no more respect for themselves than is revealed in that statement they are of little worth. The European Union has no army because they want to live in peace, so the United States has to pacify stupid little countries that commit genocide. I doubt Europe will ever have a peaceful history, particularly if they try to homogenize distinct countries with noble heritages. The remedy of their problem is decency. That lacking, they need force, even as local communities need police. Their repudiation of force is an invitation to war.

      The second reason suggested for the European Union is the belief they will only be equal to the United States economically and politically if they are big and unitary as is the United States. The ambition to be a world power is a silly ambition, a horrible confession of vanity. Is there merit in being the biggest kid on the block? Such people are hated. The United States is the world’s greatest power by accident. Helping everyone, demands for doles never ceasing, we are criticized for everything we do.

      The ambition to centralize economic power in order to be richer than the United States ignores the possibility that the cumulative wealth of the many countries of Europe may now be greater than that of the United States. The only difference is that it is not centralized. Centralization and homogenization destroy diversity, competition, and wealth so that the assumption is false that unity will increase wealth. Wealth decreases as bureaucracy increases.

      There is a school of thought that argues we should invade North Korea for the same reasons we have invaded Iraq: both countries are ruled by bloody dictatorships which will sell nuclear power to rogue nations, and these will attack the United States through terrorist cells. We live in an age of mad religious zealots whose goal is to destroy the United States and Western civilization. While the description of North Korea is correct, and the possible result described, I cannot bring myself to agree we must go to war in Asia. If Japan and China do not object to a lunatic in their midst, I see no reason to assist them. North Korea will sell nuclear power to rogue nations? It is possible, perhaps probable. On the other hand, so will Russia and possibly France. We shall be ruined economically and politically if we undertake to rule the world.

      Our invasion of Iraq was justified by unusual circumstances. Hussein was a man whose cruelty was the equal of other dictatorships of the twentieth century, and with less justification. Hitler believed Germans were a superior people and should rule the earth. The Communists believed socialism was the road to wealth. Hussein believed in himself and the extension of his powers. His goal was to conquer Saudi Arabia and control the supply of oil for the rest of the world. This could not be permitted. Our coming attempt to assure a civil society in the Middle East may fail, but we have to try.

      Purists are horrified by those who say that oil is a basis for war. I suspect, however, that purists do not want to give up their cars, heat, air-conditioning, and manufactures, marvelous consumer goods, and their exotic clothes. I suspect they would watch in horror as Western civilization returned to wood and water for power and horses for transportation, and hundreds of millions of people died of starvation until the new basis of life was established. They would not realize they were the cause of the tragedies.

      In the world that must be, if civilization is to prosper, we must be careful in our use of the word “democracy.” Democracy means living by the popular vote, the voice of the people. If Saudi Arabia were a democracy, Osama bin Laden would be president and would create a dictatorship in five minutes, illustrating in fast time what happens in any democracy. The looting in Iraq illustrates freedom becomes barbarism. We are not free, except to do what is correct. You cannot steal. The people of Iraq must establish a civil society which forbids theft and promotes respect for private property. If we emphasize the sanctity of private property as the basis of a country, we would not go far wrong. If we need more instruction on behavior between individuals, we could use the Ten Commandments.

      If I ran for the presidency on the above platform, critics would say, “He’s gone off his rocker.” They would be correct, but they would miss the point. My platform, made in jest, illustrates a few truths easily forgotten. Anyhow, I was not born in the U.S. and could not be elected if I won. The U.S. Constitution forbids it.     Ω