Doing Exactly Nothing

We all have our opinions of when the Bush administration admitted defeat. For me, it was 10 October 2003, when Dick Cheney emerged from his bunker to announce that at least Bush's bumbling wasn't nothing; it was something.

That it was, Dick. Dick.

You know things are bad when many hard core republicans admit that Bush is a disaster, but cling, as some good friends of mine have, to the consoling teddy bear of the intended criticism that had Gore been president he probably would have done nothing in response to 9/11. What are they trying to do, turn me into an Al Gore fan? Please!

No joke – I can go straight up to serious republican types now and excoriate "their president." I have said some foul stuff about Dubya (true, which is the point), and it sure ain't like the Reagan days when criticizing da prez was equivalent to the Unforgivable Sin. They take it. They sit there and take it because that's how bad things are. George W. Bush is an embarrassing parody of a B-movie US president. And what a public speaker. Whoa!

What sort of sick fantasy can supporters of this travesty be living out when they can't even admit that he's a lying tyrant, an idiot with no charisma, a dandy with a host of obvious personality disorders, and a draft-dodging hypocrite who looks like a male model and isn't afraid to pick his nose in public (.avi)? Where is the patriotic outcry for Bush's impeachment? Talk about teflon; Ronald Reagan never had it so good.

And it's a gift for us – all of it. If we'd custom ordered a first-class pendulum windup, it couldn't have been done with more style than delivered by Bush and his puppet masters. If we can get out from under without them crossing over into a new level of tyranny (e.g., red-level terror alert, suspension of elections), the stage is being set for a rush toward liberty unseen for decades. When it happens, our job is to keep pushing that locomotive as far as it will go. And the goal should be to push until government, permanently, does nothing; it can't be trusted trying to do something.

New concept? No. Lew Rockwell wrote the ultimate homage to this dread prospect not long after the birth of Cowboy Bush, and Ed Cobb was on the case the year before. Lew tried to school Billy-boy C even before that; didn't take.

Economists speak of the varying tendency/ability of people to look toward and act for the future (time preference). The usual reason for looking far forward is selfishness – what I call, when fighting a tendency to slack, "being kind to my future self." Procrastinators, of which I'm one of the worst, are routinely cruel to their future selves. This is a multi-faceted issue which can't, as some conclude, be written off merely to intelligence factors. And it gets more difficult to analyze when, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe writes in Democracy: The God That Failed, political conditions reward the politician with a moderate-to-small time horizon.

It comes down to what people will accept. As much as it disgusts, I can only conclude that the global terrorism problem has been reduced, for public discussion purposes, to a bar fight. "Yew just gonna sit there and take that, hoss? He ain't gerna respect yer none, less'n ya puts up yer dukes."

Yeah, that's good.

There's more to time horizons than just the future. Looking back is important. If you can make it through even the first 3 chapters of James Bovard's new book without putting it down in shock at what passes for leadership, you'll have taken quite a look back. What most gung-ho Americans appear to not realize is that we aren't reaping the effects of being the silent, staid giant – great bastion of freedom; the America inflicted on those outside its border has been . . . well, it's been a bad, stupid boy. It has been a horrible tyrant around the globe, and never mind that it shouted "democracy, freedom, and all that other good stuff" as it ran from place to place lifting a leg and then running away (when the victims were lucky). Doing nothing would have saved us a world of hurt. Forget about those other folks for just a minute; it would have saved the United States from this mess which may destroy them.

What happened? Selfish, intelligent time horizons were not respected. The short time preference of power-hungry scoundrels ran smack into the long memory of the victims of tyranny. People remember. I still remember when my car was burgled back in the early 90s, and if I focus on it it rankles pretty bad. That's just my car. Imagine that you are an Iraqi mother or father who watched your child blown apart in the name of . . . hell, I can't keep track of what the correct reason is now, but you know what I mean. Are you going to forget that? Are you going to feel bad about living next to a guy whose sole goal in life is to kill Americans because his wife was shot through the liver by a 19-year-old wad from Van Nuys spraying his Ramb-O-Matic?

Let's be honest about this and forget country of origin for a moment (heresy, I know). Somebody kills my wife, I'm gonna go for it. I'm going to become a thorn in the side, and I'm going to devote my life to inflicting pain toward the source of that pain of mine which can never go away – for my wife's legacy if nothing else. Why is that so mysterious to those bleacher-filling bozos we see on TV behind Bush II? Doing nothing would be preferred. Doing nothing takes brains to initiate. (Mises asserted that doing nothing is action, and even some obscenely pedantic rock lyricists agree. Significantly, for collectivists like Lee Greenwood, he also nailed them to the cross with the inescapable premise, "First we must realize that all actions are performed by individuals.")

There's a seeming contradiction in what I say. Isn't attempting to punish evildoers (e.g., those who killed my mythical wife) merely the same thing Cheney defends? No. It all comes back to aggression – not minding one's business. The classic playground question of "who started it" deserves consideration. Running around the world inflicting yourself on others isn't commendable behavior, but bopping local aggressors on the nose can be. I've often thought that the difference between libertarians and others is that we can say, "Well, I deserved that," after getting bopped in return. And then the arms are dropped.

Doing nothing is a political deal killer though. It's something that doesn't exude appreciable skill. So, while beautiful, it might be a little silly to run for office on a platform of doing nothing. The American public is too restless and lost. And what would be the result if such a mood began to catch on? The collapse of government. The dread prospect.

Cheney, you're a sly one. You know just what deception to push to make your upcoming defeat not seem so justified. "At least we did something." At least some of us know how specious your attempt at saving face is, Richard. I'd offer to box you over it, but that would be against the law. Maybe I'll find one of your pals who isn't in direct line for the presidency.

We can't count on the Bush II administration to stand by and do nothing come election time like the Bush I wankers did. They aren't going to go away quietly. These are some of the scariest, short-sighted thugs since the original George back in the late 1700s. They would sooner see you dead on a pallet than standing in their way. Look at what they've done to their own. They care only about staying in power. So patriotic.

The good news? No government can remain against popular backlash. Our real job is to work on the backlash part. Don't think there's nothing we can do! We live in a world and a country where one must fight for the right to have nothing done.

Wouldn't it be nice if Dick Cheney and friends couldn't walk into a public room without somebody shouting, "Tyrant!"

That, in the most delightful and practical sense, would be doing something.

October 13, 2003

Charley Hardman (send him mail) was born in Washington DC.

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