On the universality of access to healthcare, on torture, and on pre-emptive war, my conscience therefore requires me to withhold support for the Republican candidate. I disagree with him on many prudential policy grounds - but none reach the level of moral seriousness of the above.Of course, on these three things I agree with Sullivan. Absolutely I believe that health care is a peculiar institution in the way that basic freedom is: the right to live is in the core of our Constitution and Bill of Rights from sentence 1. Torture is hilariously ineffective, barbaric, and is intolerable for the same reasons as denying health care is (see previous sentence). And with regards to pre-emptive war with Iran, sure. Terrible idea. As terrible as a decades-spanning war with Iraq and within Afghanistan.
However, Obama isn't exactly a Boy Scout. I need to pre-empt what I am about to say with two things. The first is that I am not saying Mitt Romney would succeed in a morality game a snail's whisker farther than Mr. Obama would. Second, it has long been my opinion that borders are stupid. They are the antiquated methods by which we define an "us" and a "them" for purposes of statism, nationalism, exclusionism, and "Pentagon budgets."
If Sullivan is going to get all preachy about the morals of two men and thereby elect the world's leader, then one must step a bit farther back and look not just at the United States of A, but rather at the world in general. And when you step across the invisible lines that (separate us from our genetically identical neighbors but nevertheless) define us as a nation, President Obama's touted morality seems to rapidly diminish.
Therefore, here are three counter-reasons that the morality of Barack Obama is just as questionable, if not more so, than Mitt Romney's.
1) During the last four years, the United States has expanded our drone attack program into several nations without even the tiniest pretense of Congressional approval. Essentially what has occurred is the Defense budget has become Congress defining the size of President Obama's sword, which he then wields with a complete absence of jurisprudence (it should be noted that this unilateral deployment of our forces/drones/etc abroad goes against the War Powers Act interpretation of Barack Obama himself). During his tenure, the citizens of Pakistan have become completely terrorized by the daily presence of drones which may or may not rain death down upon them with extremely bad aim.
What stinks about this is not just that lawless robotic killing of innocent people in foreign nations would be cause for war if it were innocent Americans being killed via lawless robots from above but our nation tends to act as complicit accomplices to this atrocity, but even more so that President Obama is completely unapologetic about it while proclaiming his amazing power at "drawing down" the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Replacing soldiers (who have their own internal moral code built in as human beings) in two countries with robots who feel no guilt as they wipe schoolchildren off the face of the Earth in two other countries is not a drawdown, it is an evolution. And during the last four years, the President has transformed our military efforts in the Middle East from a colossal mistake into an evil one.
When futurists like myself looked into the glass ball and saw future wars, they were certainly fought with drones. But it was drones fighting drones. Not drones raining missiles down on kids.
2) One piece of news that got a LOT of play everywhere - everywhere except at the Daily Dish - was a Washington Post report detailing the development of a "disposition matrix" which is a fancy way of saying "kill list." This list includes terrorist suspects and the methods being used to hunt them down. While I believe the pursuit of evil people and the attempts to bring them to justice is an important process, one of the fundamental principles of human rights is habeas corpus - the right of a suspected criminal to be brought forth for trial.
Mr. Obama's use of an extrajudicial kill list - and his obvious plans to expand the list - while CIA director David Patraeus pushes to expand the deployed drone fleet further (see item 1) represents a deep gouge in the face of morality. If one believes in freedom, as I am 100% sure Andrew Sullivan does, then one wants that freedom (and the rights that go with it) to extend to everyone, regardless of what crimes they are suspected of committing. Regardless of what invisible lines are used to define them as citizens.
It should be noted that this extrajudicial kill list - I mean disposition matrix - can (and has) include(d) U.S. citizens.
3) Remember young Barry Obama, smoking pot with his teenage friends? Remember candidate Obama touting the urgency with which he would repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell as President? Candidate Obama did a pretty good job of painting "L is for liberal" on his shirt back in 2008. But then Rahm Emanuel cracked down on marijuana and unions, Federal agents "on a drug raid" started smashing people's doors down and shooting them before they confirmed if they were even the right person, and Don't Ask Don't Tell lasted until midnight 2011. WHERE DID YOU GO, BARRY?
The answer, of course, is that Mr. Obama had flip-flopped. His apologists are quick to defend: "repealing DADT requires Congress, too, asshat." Yes but did he even try before the lame duck? Gates called it "on the back burner." Even Sullivan (while furiously spinning it into "leading from behind") admits that Obama drug his heels on DADT.
In any case, the moral question is of course how a man can smoke pot and then grow up to aggressively prosecute pot smokers. How a man can champion liberal ideals and then morph into a right-leaning centrist February 1, 2009?
And how can we trust the barrage of brown, foul-smelling promises he defecates now? Fool me once, shame on you.
The Left happily pounces on Mitt the Waffle, pointing to his spontaneous combustion on October 2nd and Phoenix-like rebirth as a moderate at the Oct. 3 debate. "The man has no moral compass! He'll say anything to get elected!" or so trumpets Andrew Sullivan.
Sully, which candidate are you talking about?!
When these charges are leveled against President Obama, and believe me - I'm not the first nor the last to point out the egregious human rights violations our President recklessly perpetrates in the Middle East - Sullivan's defense always boils down to "But but but Mitt Romney would be so. much. worse. If you don't vote Obama you're effectively helping Romney."
If an EF4 tornado has just wiped your barn off the map and it is rapidly heading across the pasture towards your house, as you flee to your storm shelter, do you really want some brilliant and helpful person to shout to you "at least it isn't an EF5!!"
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