Liberty Alone

Having opposed Bush’s plans for wire tapping and claimed they would repeal such powers, the Democrats are now seeking to extend that power (NYTimes, use bugmenot.com to get a username and password).

This seems to be a case of getting a whiff of power and wanting to use it. They probably assume that soon there’ll be a Democrat in the Whitehouse who will obviously only do good.

Admittedly they’ve made a few superficial moves towards improving the situation, but the fact remains that secret wiretaps without a warrent will be available to the NSA for even longer. It represents an extension of federal power and an erosion of civil liberties.

The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans. They want just as much bigger government and government intervention, they waste as much money when it comes to pork-barreling. The difference is they wrap their mendacity up in fluffier terms than the Republicans.

Whilst I share many people’s intense dislike for George W Bush and his allies in the Republican Party, I do not see the Democrats as saviours as many do. Whilst I am sympathetic to the ideas of lack of discrimination and equal opportunity and eradication of poverty, that does not make the Democrats natural allies, in the same way that Labour are not natural allies for Liberals.
The Democrats are more akin to Labour, they are, for the most part a big government, high taxation, interventionist party. Like Labour they take an authoritarian view, seeking to make people live as they wish, rather than setting people free from restrictions.

True, this is the line Bush’s administration has taken, and against him, even John Kerry would have been an improvement, indeed, even Ralph Nader would have been, but that does not make the Democrats the great hope many make them out to be.
Look at the new crop of new senators and representatives: They campaigned on illiberal anti-free trade platforms, on protectionist, isolationist, verging on nationalist platforms. Edwards is positioning himself as a Souther populist, the Southern populists was a group which first sought to ally with the black population in the South, but followed up by attacking them along with Catholics and Jews.

There are many decent Democrats, but as a party they are not fundamentally liberal, their presidential candidates are all big state, high tax devotees and will not deliver a liberal program.

Neither party promotes a liberal agenda, although the Republican Liberty Caucus (’The Conscience of the Republican Party’ as they term themselves) promote a libertarian liberal agenda, both parties have serious flaws from a liberal viewpoint and strong illiberal tendencies.

The best interests of the American people, and the world, would be served by a split administration, one party in the executive and another in control in the legislature, and just pray for moderates on both sides.

I live in hope of a liberal group consisting of liberals in both parties emerging, but the electoral system and the political climate do not encourage this so I think the dedicated liberal cause in the US will continue to be weak.