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May 31, 2007
Watch What (Rudy) You Wish For
I've certainly been puzzled and somewhat distressed at some social conservatives' arguably impulsive support for Rudy Giuliani, but the Cato Institute's David Boaz thinks libertarians ought to be wary of that particular cult of personality, as well:
... Throughout his career, Giuliani has displayed an authoritarian streak that would be all the more problematic in a man who would assume executive powers vastly expanded by President Bush. ...As a presidential hopeful, Giuliani's authoritarian streak is as strong as ever. He defends the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. He endorses the President's power to arrest American citizens, declare them enemy combatants and hold them without access to a lawyer or a judge. He thinks the President has "the inherent authority to support the troops" even if Congress were to cut off war funding, a claim of presidential authority so sweeping that even Bush and his supporters have not tried to make it.
... In 1964, Barry Goldwater declared it "the cause of Republicanism to resist concentrations of power." George W. Bush has forgotten that; Rudy Giuliani rejects it.
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As a presidential hopeful, Giuliani's authoritarian streak is as strong as ever. He defends the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. He endorses the President's power to arrest American citizens, declare them enemy combatants and hold them without access to a lawyer or a judge. He thinks the President has "the inherent authority to support the troops" even if Congress were to cut off war funding, a claim of presidential authority so sweeping that even Bush and his supporters have not tried to make it.
Posted by: Mike at May 31, 2007 8:52 AMXXX
Only Ron Paul supports civil liberties. Every one of the rest are fine with the quasi-dictatorship we now have. Romney wants to double the size of the Guantanamo Gulag.
We live in different times. What the hard-nosed intellectuals at Cato don't get is that the terrorists use our liberties to their advantage. They don't fight fair, they're cowards. The only way to win against this enemy is to make some selective and common-sense sacrifices. Unlike the Cato-ists, sensible, law-abiding citizens know the Government is not going to intrude on their mundane, every-day lives.
Posted by: Warbucks at May 31, 2007 4:17 PM