Category Archives: Philosophy

President-elect Obama became President Obama today. It is worth taking a minute to reflect on the nature of his office. Exactly what has he gotten himself into?

Good men rarely become president. Good people don’t even want to be president. Once in a while, one slips through the cracks. George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Grover Cleveland (not kidding). Maybe Barack Obama will be added to that list some day. It’s too early to tell.

I have some doubts. Here’s why: becoming president requires years of campaigning and fundraising, handshaking and deal-making — no one can possibly endure the modern campaign unless they thirst for power to their very core.

Campaigning for even minor office requires months of the candidate prostrating himself before people he’s never met. Making grand promises he couldn’t possibly keep. The things that must do to his mind. Especially if he starts buying his own hype.

Our candidate must hide his true beliefs. He has to tailor his opinions to match the median voter’s. He dares not follow his own heart or mind. He’d lose for sure.

Good people carry themselves with pride and dignity. The man or woman who voluntarily embarks on the modern campaign has neither.

And the media coverage. The spotlight so bright that it burns. Unkempt reporters always scurrying underfoot. Never a moment to yourself on the campaign trail.

Worse, the strain it puts on your family. Long weeks of separation. Unflattering exposés, revealing your relatives’ personal lives for millions to see.

Good people do not do that to their families.

Nor do good people seek power over other human beings. Morality in politics is that of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic; might makes right. No parent would teach that to their child. It is wrong.

Yet it is the morality that men must follow to become president.

Politicians are terrible little creatures. May our children aspire to greater things than the presidency.

The Weekly Standard‘s Fred Barnes has a scare story in today’s Wall Street Journal. He warns of a lurch to the left if Barack Obama wins today’s election. Barnes, a partisan Republican, wrote a book about President Bush in 2006 titled Rebel-in-Chief. He is also a McCain supporter.

Suppose Obama wins, and this lurch to the left happens. Why is Barnes opposed to it? A leftward turn would simply be a continuation of large swaths of Bush administration policy — which Barnes endorses.

True, most people think of President Bush as a conservative, not a liberal. And yes, President Bush is socially conservative and hawkish on foreign policy.

His liberal credentials are still impressive.

For example: President Bush has enacted the largest new entitlement program in forty years; made the tax code more progressive; skyrocketed federal spending on education; overseen 51,000 new regulations to rein in unfettered free markets; transferred billions of dollars from taxpayers to alternative energy researchers; the list goes on.

In short, the federal government, both in spending and in doing, has grown faster under Bush than even Lyndon Johnson could muster. McCain’s limited government credentials are on roughly equal footing.

Barnes and Obama do see things differently on foreign policy and on some social issues. But when it comes to core principles, there is little difference. Barnes, Bush, McCain, and Obama all favor a large, active federal government. Barnes’ distaste for Obama — and support for McCain — is more likely motivated by partisanship than actual philosophical disagreement.

The truth is, no matter who wins, people who favor limited government will probably lose.

I used to vote. But I stopped after the 2002 election. I catch a lot of flak for it, too. Friends, family, and co-workers have all taken me to task over the years.

But I have my reasons. Two of them, in fact. The first is simple: I don’t care for either candidate.

The second reason is much more important. Unfortunately, it also rubs a lot of people the wrong way: my vote will not change the outcome of the election. This is true even though I live in a swing state. For all intents and purposes, my vote doesn’t count.

Let’s use Virginia, where I live, as an example. There are currently 5,021,993 registered voters here. Let’s bias the assumptions to make my vote as decisive as possible. Suppose 40% turnout, which is lower than expected. Also suppose that Obama and McCain are polling exactly 50-50 on election day. The election could easily go either way. It’s a coin toss. Would my vote affect the outcome?

There’s a chance it would. And I just calculated it using a formula developed by political scientists Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky (hat tip to Bryan Caplan‘s Public Finance class). How big is that chance?

(drumroll, please…)

It’s so small, my graphing calculator can’t even display it properly. It gives me a syntax error. That means we’re talking a number smaller than 10 to the -100 power. Basically zero, in other words. Even under the most favorable circumstances.

You can see why I don’t think it matters if I vote.

Unfortunately, more than one person I’ve talked to has assumed that because I don’t vote, then I must think that anyone who does is a fool. That simply isn’t true. A lot of people value participating in democracy highly enough to outweigh the low impact of voting. That is a value judgment, and not to be looked down upon; different people have different values.

All I ask is that you voters out there return the favor and respect the decisions of those of us who don’t vote. We have our reasons, too.