(February 2, 2025)

OK, it’s time to come clean. We at LibertyGuys, and many, many libertarians, minarchists, anarchists, war opponents, and other free-thinkers, while relieved that he can finally do no more direct harm to the entire globe on a whim, secretly miss George W. Bush already. Because, you see, deep down in our heart of hearts, we were really, really grateful for his presidency.

What I mean is this. We opposed all the wars, the spying on Americans, the torture, the crony capitalism, the transparent use of the entire Imperial military apparatus for the benefit of connected flunkies, then, finally, the direct transfer of all of our financial futures to his friends on Wall Street, with more than 80% of the people opposed. All of it.

We opposed all the spending, the creation of vast new entitlements, the bailouts for all of the evil f**ks on Wall Street, K Street, and Detroit.  In short, we opposed nearly everything the man stands for or did. But deep down, after every bad thing he did, a little part of us said a small “amen”.

Sure, it was nice to have something to agree with our liberal friends on, the wars, the imperialism, the torture, Katrina, etc. Any and all of those things was reason enough to hate him. But it wasn’t the reason we love him.

The thing, the thing we very much love about George W. Bush is the way he made the case against statism. Every thing the man did included all of the classic statist ingredients; war, demonization of the other (Muslims), socialism, protectionism, polarization and politicization of every sphere, cronyism, and corporatism, covered with a sauce of greed and venality, and served up with a double helping of rank incompetence.

The War on Iraq, the destruction of civilization in Afghanistan, the Katrina disaster, the revelations of massive illegal wiretapping , any one of these would have destroyed a lesser demon, say a Richard Nixon, or a Lyndon Johnson. But not our man George. He plagued us, completely intact, to the very end. Even the collapse of our entire system of corporatism and imperial finance did not unhorse this cowboy. His was a singular reign.

Perversely, this is why we are afraid of the manifestly competent politician who replaced him, the Obamessiah. Our worst fear, all us freedom-loving types who have awakened to the government’s war on civilization, that the man may actually place people of intelligence, merit, and skill in those powerful positions available to his patronage is being realized.

We are alarmed that he has filled his staffs with brilliant, competent idealogues. We might, quite understandably be terrified, absolutely terrified, that Obama, the unitary leader of the biggest, richest, most powerful state ever to exist, might make the trains run on time. Except, we know he can’t.

Oh he will do everything his fans and supporters expect of him. He will mouth all the right platitudes, he will speak “directly” to the people, his armies of PR flacks and press dupesters will dutifully report on his triumphs, while sweeping his failures under a rug. It has been, and will be a brilliant performance.

And none of it will make any difference. The financial crisis is gearing up to become a fiscal and monetary tsunami, one that will sweep away all before it. They, those bright, motivated bureaucrats won’t know what hit them.

But they will enjoy, at least for a while the completely undeserved trust and goodwill of many of the people, even as we all march into the depths of it.

(photo from ratemyeverything.com)