There are things that our elected officials have relatively little leverage to control. For example, a senator has little control of abortion. The primary control of abortion rests with the federal Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices are appointed by the President of the U.S., and the senate gets to either approve or disapprove of the appointment. The justice cannot directly impose law, though. He is one of nine justices that rules on cases that appear before the court; at most, the justice can influence case law. I do not intend to trivialize the role of a Supreme Court justice. Instead, I am attempting to accurately represent the amount of leverage over abortion had by any politician:
President → Supreme Court Nomination → Congressional Approval → Case Presented → 1/9 of a decision.
Our hypothetical senator represents 1/100 of the vote during the Congressional Approval stage of the chain.
In spite of this little amount of leverage, abortion consumes an exceptionally high percentage of the political discussion. It is present in every presidential debate. Perhaps you think this is reasonable? But abortion was also part of both debates for the state house representative of district 72 of Florida [1,2]. And here’s where we realize that choice in the two party system is mostly an illusion. Even in this small election (approximately 50,000 constituents voted) for a state house seat, a position which has almost no bearing on the legality of abortion, abortion was a major part of the discussion. I believe that this is because there is little else that distinguishes a Republican from a Democrat.
For most large issues, the Democrats and the Republicans are in agreement. The Republican 2,200 page omnibus spending bill of 2018 funded the same departments as were funded under Obama at approximately the same amounts. The military, the department of health and human services, the department of labor, the department of education, the corporation of public broadcasting, the national endowments of the arts, the national endowments of the humanities, and most other programs were all funded at levels approximately the same or above Obama’s 2016 budget [3]. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have created annual budgets larger than a trillion dollars; in so doing, these two parties have drastically increased the amount of U.S. debt (it is currently approximately $21 trillion). It is clear that neither of these parties supports reduced government or fiscal responsibility.
In 2012, under Obama, the National Defense Authorization Act included a provision which permitted the military to incarcerate a prisoner of war indefinitely without a trial. It should be noted that American citizens (including children) can be considered enemies of war and have been killed without trial [4]. This provision continues today with a Republican government.
George W. Bush initiated a war in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Obama continued the war in Afghanistan (and arguably continued the war in Iraq). And the war continues today under President Trump. As of now, approximately 2,300 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan [5]; there is not currently a plan to end this war. An army friend of mine tells me that they have a statement, “The Army is at war. But the American people are not. They have forgotten about us.”
Under President Obama, the U.S. sold over $115 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia [6,7]. President Obama conducted over ten times the number of drone strikes made by President George W. Bush [8]. In 2016 alone, the U.S. dropped over 26,000 bombs and had military operations in 138 countries [9,10]. One such bomb killed approximately 140 civilians and wounded 525 more that were participating in a funeral procession in Yemen [11]. In the first military operation under President Trump, 30 civilians including 10 women and children were killed, again in Yemen [12]. Almost immediately after taking office, President Trump approved a sale of an additional $1 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia [13]. Trump has dropped a record number of bombs in the middle east in his first year of office [14]. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are proponents of a seemingly endless war in the Middle East.
There are some significant differences between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats are generally more interested in protecting the environment; the Republicans are generally more interested in profiting from the natural resources of the U.S. (though it should be noted that President Obama initiated a major fracking effort, which continues today). Indeed, the Democrats are generally Pro-Abortion and the Republicans are generally Anti-Abortion (though the Republicans funded Planned Parenthood in the 2018 omnibus spending bill at the same level that it was funded under Obama). And the Democrats favor immigration while the Republicans tend to oppose it (largely because most immigrants become Democrats). And Republicans tend to fund the military at even higher levels than the Democrats (though Obama and Clinton both approved massive expanding military budgets). However, for the majority of government operations – the size of government, the role of government, government spending, and war – the Republicans and the Democrats are aligned.
There is a party that offers a significant alternative: The Libertarian Party. The Libertarian party is the only major party to consider civilian and American soldier casualties into the cost of war; Libertarians avoid war until absolutely necessary. The Libertarian party is the only major party that remains fiscally conservative; the skyrocketing national debt is a significant issue for Libertarians [15]. The Libertarian party is the only party that wants to reduce the size of government. A central theme of the Libertarian party is freedom [16]:
We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.
After living as a citizen of a government that has instituted unjustified incarceration, surveillance and eavesdropping of its citizens, extreme debt, and war, I am very interested in the possibilities of a Libertarian agenda.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vxpoeoo2ZM
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkYQWZGEsi4
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/trump-obama-omnibus-spending-budget/556436/
[4] https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/23/world/meast/anwar-al-awlaki-fast-facts/index.html
[5] http://icasualties.org/OEF/index.aspx
[6] https://www.thenation.com/article/under-obama-the-united-states-has-sold-more-than-115-billion-in-weapons-to-saudi-arabia/
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/08/obama-administration-offered-115-billion-weapons-saudi-arabia-report
[8] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy
[9] https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more-strikes-than-bush
[10] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-president-barack-obama-bomb-map-drone-wars-strikes-20000-pakistan-middle-east-afghanistan-a7534851.html
[11] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/15/saudi-led-coalition-admits-to-bombing-yemen-funeral
[12] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/donald-trump-us-military-attack-yemen-civilians-women-children-dead-a7553121.html
[13] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/03/22/trump-administration-approves-1b-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia-including-more-than-6500-missiles.html
[14] http://www.newsweek.com/trump-era-record-number-bombs-dropped-middle-east-667505
[15] https://www.lp.org/news-press-releases-libertarians-say-no-to-raising-debt-limit/
[16] https://www.lp.org/platform/
