The problem with Rudy (and with all of the Presidential candidates)

Andrew Sullivan references this piece by David Boaz of the Cato Institute as a warning to more libertarian minded voters to beware the temptation of Rudy Guliani.

Libertarians, beware the rigid reign of Rudy

I have to admit that Guliani has seemed a tempting candidate to me for the very libertarian tendencies that Boaz cites in this piece. I am growing more and more wary of his more authoritarian impulses and, as importantly, the more authoritarian direction that his lead has generated in the Republican debates. The aggressive and authoritarian impulses in both Democratic and Republican politics the last 6 years has been kind of scary, really. There are no perfect choices. Ron Paul is the best choice among Republicans for domestic politics, but I'm not convinced that he has really thought through international security issues.

Barak Obama has been my favored Democratic candidate for his promise to transcend a lot of partisan narrowness in favor of more genuine commitment to a more thoughtful political dialogue. But Presidential politics, and Democratic primary politics, in particular, seems to be overwhelming that promise. I just listened to an NPR report yesterday morning that featured Barak telling a Union crowd that he won't shop at Walmart because of labor practices. It's not the worst position to take - Walmart, like a million employers, does have a reputation for treating employees as usable and disposable rather than as human beings; though treating Walmart with the same regard and just the general trend of treating people with that same regard (do you really think that anti-Walmart folks generally favored treating Lewis Libby more decently?) makes the backers of the anti-Walmart sentiments hypocrits at best and no better than Walmart, at worst - but I'm tired of power politics persistently overwhelming more substantial and engaged discussion and thought, which is what make Barak Obama such an attractive candidate.

Bill Richardson is a candidate that has a lot more mileage, today, with me than before those Democratic debates. I like both his libertarian liberal bent and his serious international policy and security knowledge and experience without the arrogance of Joe Biden who I fear would scare the shit out of the world as an American President, right now, unless he got some serious humility. I am impressed, in retrospect, with Richardson's honest admission about his somewhat petty racist reaction to the Alberto Gonzalez "scandal" (Has there ever been more a scandal that really wasn't a scandal? Except for Paul Wolfowitz's crucifixion, that is). I'm proud of any Presidential candidate who admits his faults out loud. It's refreshing. And I'd like to see much more of it. I'll be looking seriously at Bill Richardson in the coming months.

I like Ron Paul because he opens up the discussion about government power. I am not enamoured of his views of international security and have my doubts that he feels comfortable using government power for security efforts, domestically and internationally, when they are necessary. Right now, though this can and hopefully will change. But, right now, he doesn't pass my, "Would you trust this guy to fight terrorists when he needs to?" test. And though his advertising his vote for impeaching Bill Clinton may have played well to his Republican audience, it was bad news for me as someone who still very strongly believes that those impeachment proceedings were petty partisanship at it's worst. I'm not enamoured by Rudy Guliani's far too comfortable relationship with government power, either. I like his more libertarian commitments. But I've never been in love with his James Q. Wilson strictly-enforce-every-lesser-crime approach to crime and government authority, the very reasoning that so many conservatives and liberals seem enamoured of, these days.

Rudy is exactly what the American population is crying out for, right now, which would explain his high poll ratings. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are similar candidates among Democrats. There are too many to count among Republicans.

I want a candidate who I can count on to be thoughtful about government and power, who wants as big a sphere for personal and every other serious freedom as possible, and who feels comfortable with the use of power, especially for security needs, domestically and internationally, when it is needed.

I don't know who that candidate is, at this point. But I do know that more than anything what needs to change is citizen attitudes about power. This festish and doomed romanticism that they have with power, right now, needs to end sooner rather than later. It will wear away whether they like it or not because the credibility necessary to make authority work cannot sustain itself when citizens are and feel run roughshot over. But it will wear away the more they are being run roughshot over and it will more quickly the more citizens think about what power really can and cannot do.

Ron Paul has engaged in serious thought about the limits of government authority. He would do well to think about how government authority should be used when it must. Rudy and Barak and the largest swath of both Democratic and Republican candidates would do well to think more about better limitations on authority.

More importantly, all of us, citizens and leaders, alike, would do well to think about the limits of power.

Love,
Ben