Tuesday, March 01, 2005
I Have a Dream… About the American Presidency
In his essay, “An American Classical Liberalism,” Lew Rockwell shares his dream of an America in which,
“I don’t know or care who the president of the United States is. More importantly, I don’t need to know or care…
“In my daydream, the president is mostly a figurehead and a symbol, almost invisible to myself and my community. He has no public wealth at his disposal. He administers no regulatory departments. He cannot tax us, send our children into foreign wars, pass out welfare to the rich or the poor, appoint judges to take away our rights of self-government, control a central bank that inflates the money supply, and bring on the business cycle, or change the laws willy-nilly according to the social interests he likes or seeks to punish.
“His job is simply to oversee a tiny government with virtually no power except to arbitrate disputes among the states, which are the primary governmental units.”
As Thomas E. Woods notes about this dream, “Far from the uniformed daydreams of misanthropes and malcontents, [Rockwell’s dream] is precisely what the Constitution prescribes.”
I’m with Rockwell and Woods. This is a beautiful dream.
In his essay, “An American Classical Liberalism,” Lew Rockwell shares his dream of an America in which,
“I don’t know or care who the president of the United States is. More importantly, I don’t need to know or care…
“In my daydream, the president is mostly a figurehead and a symbol, almost invisible to myself and my community. He has no public wealth at his disposal. He administers no regulatory departments. He cannot tax us, send our children into foreign wars, pass out welfare to the rich or the poor, appoint judges to take away our rights of self-government, control a central bank that inflates the money supply, and bring on the business cycle, or change the laws willy-nilly according to the social interests he likes or seeks to punish.
“His job is simply to oversee a tiny government with virtually no power except to arbitrate disputes among the states, which are the primary governmental units.”
As Thomas E. Woods notes about this dream, “Far from the uniformed daydreams of misanthropes and malcontents, [Rockwell’s dream] is precisely what the Constitution prescribes.”
I’m with Rockwell and Woods. This is a beautiful dream.
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