We voted for Change in 2008 and here we are in 2011 fighting for basic democratic rights.
It was George W. Bush who once said in an interview that whoever becomes president after him, what he will get told every day (meaning security briefings etc) will change him. I think that's probably true only insofar as you as a president accept the basic premise that you are the Chief Watchdog of The American People and have to use ever more centralised power to guard your sheep.
Edit: This is not really on topic concerning the issues raised in the article linked, I know. I am just replying.
The thing though is I don't think that it's just the security briefings. Obama didn't slowly change. He ran out of the gate running the wrong direction and by April 2009, the EFF was calling the way state secrets privilege was invoked under the Obama administration "Worse than Bush." Instead what have we got for our troubles? more bodyscanners at airports, mobile bodyscanners deployed at various places, the DoJ arguing in court that random body cavity searches in airports would be Constitutional (EPIC v. DHS) and that the President has the Constitutional authority to target any American anywhere in the world with lethal military force (in the Al-Awlaki case) and that state secrets privilege extended to evidence against the accused.
And through this whole process we are told that the Republicans would be worse and so we should just accept what we are given, and support our President as the fundamental protections of our liberty are assaulted again and again by the executive branch.
This is where the voting for the lesser evil leads, because a lesser evil unopposed for fear of a greater one can do far more damage than a greater one where such opposition exists.
Now, in my view, this radical far-right constituency would not have been nearly as vocal if a president such as McCain was in office. That's not to say that they wouldn't be there, but I don't think they would have nearly as prominent of a place in the Republican party, and I don't think that the Tea Party would exist at all. When a party is responsible for governing, it's hard for it to go too far off the deep end (I hope). Even far right Republicans would have had trouble vilifying a center-right Republican president, which is how I believe McCain would have governed. With a bit less opposition, such a president could and perhaps would have governed in a similar way as Obama has, but would have faced far less obstructionism. I'm not saying that McCain would have been a better president than Obama - I think the opposite is true, and Sarah Palin flat-out scares me. Instead, I just think that congressional Republicans have dug in their heels so far that even a Democrat who agrees with them on most fundamental issues is seen as a closet socialist Muslim out to destroy the US as we know it. With that kind of view and a minimum of 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate, it's hard to see how a moderate or even slightly right Democrat could govern successfully.
That being said, this year's crop of GOP candidates is pretty scary, and I don't know how well this logic applies. I think a figure like John Huntsman might be able to successfully tame the far right wing of his party while governing from a fairly centrist position, but he may be the only one. Romney is hard to get a read on - if he's just moved to the right rhetorically to get through the primaries, then he might govern in a reasonable manner. However, if he truly believes some of the things that he has said this summer/fall, or has boxed himself in too much with campaign promises, his presidency could be fairly catastrophic. In my view, the only "productive" reason to vote for the "greater" of two evils is if you think that the two candidates would in reality govern quite similarly but one would be unable to get anything done due to extreme obstructionism. If the two candidates would govern very differently, then it seems highly counter-productive to vote for what you see as the greater of two evils.
Understand that I'm making this a bit as a devil's advocate argument - I will still almost certainly be voting for Obama in 2012 (the only republican I could even consider voting for would be Huntsman, based solely on their acceptance of science). But I was responding to the question of how it could be at all productive to vote against the "lesser of two evils" in such a choice. I think there is a valid devil's advocate argument that in the face of such unmitigated obstructionism, the government as a whole might be more productive with a moderate republican in office than a democrat acting like a moderate republican (like we have now). I'm NOT saying that I approve of that situation, or that it's a good situation, I just think that it's one way to look at the situation we're in. Not sure why that view got down-voted...
Not that I disagree with you, but I'd like to point out that "civil liberties" is a very broad category. I think that if you examine the question deeper, you'll find that Obama also explicitly eschews some kinds of civil liberties.
Liberals, and specifically Obama, are openly hostile to one's right to property and the fruits of one's labor. And they're not too keen on the sovereignty of the individual: their right to decide their own values, and act as they deem best to maximize their own values.
The way our current system, with a single "left/right" dimension, divides up support for these seems to demand that we all take a position on which grouping -- column A or column B -- are more important, and that's very unfortunate. But even more unfortunate is that the media seem to implicitly consider only those in Column A to really be civil liberties, while either ignoring, or considering as an entirely different species -- those from Column B.
I'm sorry, but this is a gross oversimplification. There are those that call themselves liberal but have a point of view exactly as you describe, but there is nothing that requires someone who is liberal to be against property rights and determination in individual's work.
Of course it is, but so is the claim that Conservatives hate the "Column A" civil liberties. For example, despite it seeming to be a core GOP plank, I only know 2 people opposed to gay marriage (one of them my father <sigh>).
So: yes, it's an oversimplification. But part of what I was saying is that when we're stuck with only 2 parties (in practice), and a single "left/right" dimension, then these awful generalizations are all that we have to work with.
Finally, the fact that someone else made an oversimplification isn't really a great justification to do it yourself...
That's not what I intended to convey. I'm trying to say that, when you've only got two choices, the resolution of your choices is horrendously coarse. In the end, the system as it exists today forces us to look through lenses that oversimplify like this.
I don't think that the two oversimplifications are on the same level. But you'd be very hard pressed to find many "liberal" politicians who are against property rights.
On the contrary. Most controversially, it seems to me at least that most of the cards that the Democratic party is playing these days are in the "class struggle" suit. Beyond that, though, I'd say that the very fact that you're not noticing it demonstrates how ingrained it has become. For example, consider the way that environmental legislation takes away a person's rights to his property without any compensation[1].
Also, no one has commented on the personal sovereignty aspect of civil liberties. This is the idea that each of us has different priorities, and we should be allowed (without endangering others) to maximize those values. "Nanny state" laws like smoking bans, mandates for motorcycle helmets, and yesterday's calls by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) to ban flavored cigars [1] clearly curtail my civil libeties, and it seems to me that these tend to be championed by the left.
[1] I was once advised to chop down a tree on my property because it was expected to show up on the list of endangered species; once it was there, I wouldn't be allowed to do anything to develop my property.
I find this surprising. Perhaps some down-voters could respond regarding their downvotes.
I believe that my post is topical, certainly with respect to its parent; and it's at least trying to add a finer level to the discussion, rather than just a throwaway.
Is it that you don't regard those "Column B" things like property rights as "civil liberties"? Is it that you think this A/B distinction along left-right lines is the natural order of morality, and I should just accept it?
The main problem is that the system does not allow for effective involvement of the people. The key to solving this isn't to vote for the worst option possible, but rather to reform and change the system itself.
Unfortunately, with the Citizens United ruling it feels like we went the extreme other direction here. It makes me wonder if things will ever improve here (as far as our politicians go).
http://sanders.senate.gov/petition/?uid=f1c2660f-54b9-4193-8...
This is something that could actually pass if people rally around it.
It's the politicians who are really the evil ones here. It's to be expected that corporations will jockey for favor, and it's the job of the politicians to honestly weigh all sides and do what's best for the country.
In that light, why would want to curtail the freedoms of the People in order to allow the politicians to keep following the same evil patterns? And that goes double, when the restrictions being contemplated can't possibly be policed. There are far more ways that a private entity can support a politician than through money or even in-kind support. For example, corporations could still easily and untraceably give favored politicians insider tips for when to buy and sell stock.
As far as I can see, the only way to block the problem without shredding our 1st Amendment is by taking away from the politicians the product they're selling to private interests. That is, strip the government of power so that it doesn't have the ability to create winners and losers.
And as long politicians have to vote on a hundred issues a year that could each reward a lifetime of careful study this'll keep happening. We all know SOPA is terrible but most people in the US have no clue. How many laws are made that we're apathetic about, but which we'd be outraged by if we knew more about the issue?
I feel like we really need to either find ways of making sure our politicians have better sources of expertise on hands than the ones provided by industry, or to stop trying to make such complex laws that demand more understanding of the workings of things than our politicians have themselves.
Now you start to see the changes....