The Freedom Bulletin

In honor of Presidents’ Day, Gallup released the results of its annual poll on who Americans consider to be the greatest president. The winner? Ronald Reagan. There were some interesting inclusions and omissions in the top results, which you can see below:

1. Ronald Reagan (19%)
2. Abraham Lincoln (14%)
3. Bill Clinton (13%)
4. John F. Kennedy (11%)
5. George Washington (10%)
6. Franklin Roosevelt (8%)
7. Barack Obama (5%)
8. Theodore Roosevelt (3%)
9. Harry Truman (3%)
10. George W. Bush (2%)
11. Thomas Jefferson (2%)
12. Jimmy Carter (1%)
13. Dwight Eisenhower (1%)
14. George H. W. Bush (1%)
15. Andrew Jackson (less than 1%)
16. Lyndon Johnson (less than 1%)
17. Richard Nixon (less than 1%)

In my opinion, Reagan is a reasonable choice for the winner, and Lincoln definitely deserves his second place slot. But Bill Clinton third? Washington only fifth and Jefferson tied for tenth? Those two certainly deserve to be higher. So does Andrew Jackson, who received less then 1% of the vote, and so do Calvin Coolidge, John Adams, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams, none of whom were even in the top 17. And don’t even get me started on Obama with 5% of the vote.

It is understandable that the results are skewed toward more recent presidents, since people are more likely to think of them, but people need to be more aware of our nation’s history and have more respect for the early presidential greats.

There. I said it. I used to think George W. Bush was a pretty good president. Not awesome, but pretty good. But my outrage over the increasingly frequent strip-searches of innocent air travelers has changed this.

Believe it or not, I didn’t know until last week that the TSA was founded after the 9/11 terror attacks. I just assumed it had been around for a long time. According to Wikipedia, the TSA was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act on November 19, 2001. It was passed by Congress and signed by Bush.

That means that Bush indirectly caused the routine strip-searches of air travelers. Although strip-search machines did not begin to be used as a primary method of screening until after Barack Obama became president, Bush created the TSA, which in turn decided to forcibly strip-search innocent Americans. As a deontologist, I usually do not hold people responsible for things that they only indirectly cause, but strip-search machines are such a heinous abuse of liberty that I can’t possibly support anyone who even indirectly caused them or had the power to stop them but didn’t.

So although George W. has a lot of funny quotes and a nice laid-back demeanor, I can’t consider him a good president. Liberty, privacy, and dignity are such important principles, which the TSA has violated so egregiously, that I won’t support the president who created the TSA.

I do not consider myself a liberal. But when I read about the torture techniques that the CIA has been using against terror suspects, I was outraged. After 9/11, according to the Associated Press, detainees were questioned while naked, chained, and hooded, and if they refused to submit they were deprived of food, slapped, slammed into fake walls, doused in water, forced into stress positions, and waterboarded. At night they were chained in a standing position, naked or wearing diapers. They almost put one prisoner, who had a fear of insects, into a confinement box filled with caterpillars. Nudity and sleep deprivation are forbidden by the U.S. Army Field Manual. However, that didn’t seem to stop anyone.

Memos describing this horrific treatment were just released by the Justice Department in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, and Barack Obama decided to end the aforementioned torture methods. “We have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them (the memos) never take place again,” he said. I can’t believe I’m saying this because I usually don’t agree with anything he does, but I agree with Obama’s decision.

Liberals, conservatives, and libertarians alike should be outraged that agents representing America, a nation known as the land of the free, tortured and took away the dignity of people who hadn’t been convicted of crimes. America should be the nation that stands up for freedom, but instead we took people’s freedom away, making us essentially no better than the terrorists we were trying to stop. Yes, this torture might have helped stop terrorist attacks and save lives, but even if it definitely did, that does not make it right. As a deontologist, I believe that it is never morally acceptable to violate people’s rights, regardless of the consequences. I hate when people try to justify something merely by saying “it saves lives.” Well, maybe it does, but if it violates an innocent person’s rights (which the terror suspects might not be, but we don’t know because they hadn’t been tried by a court of law) then it’s wrong no matter how many lives it saves.

Although I think Bush is okay overall (not the best, but okay), I really disagree with him and his supporters on this particular issue. “The use of these techniques does not inflict either physical or psychological damage,” David Rivkin, a constitutional lawyer, said to Fox News. Really? Being stripped naked, shoved into walls, smacked around, and being made to feel like you’re drowning to death doesn’t inflict psychological damage?

Then Rivkin went on to say that the release of the memos made the torture techniques “essentially unusable in the future.” And that’s bad why?

Dana Perino, Bush’s former press secretary, told the Washington Times that “We kept this country safe for 7 1/2 years and it’s time they gave us some credit for it.” Maybe, but the government’s purpose isn’t to keep America safe ; it’s to keep it free. The Patriot Act, excessive airport security, and now torture show that the Bush administration failed miserably in doing that. The government is supposed to serve the people. It needs to stop treating us like a parent treats a child, and start treating us like an employee treats a boss.

Unfortunately Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder do not intend to prosecute the perpetrators of these heinous acts, but the ACLU is saying that they should, and I agree. “There can be no more excuses for putting off criminal investigations of officials who authorized torture, lawyers who justified it and interrogators who broke the law,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU.

I think that what happened was not only torture, but it was immoral, unconstitutional, and unjustifiable. It would be a travesty of justice if no one was punished for this. And I am not saying this as a libertarian, but simply as a patriotic American. There is no point in fighting terrorists if we are going to act just like terrorists ourselves.

I’m going to miss George W. Bush. 

Our 43rd president wasn’t perfect by any means, but out of the three presidents I can remember, he is my favorite. When I was little, it seemed like Bill Clinton had been president forever. I don’t have any memory of Bush 41, and until Bush 43 was elected, it seemed like the name Clinton was basically synonymous with the word president. In the 2000 election (the first election when I was actually into politics) I rooted for Bush, and I was happy when he won. Same with 2004. In this election, let’s just say I wasn’t overly thrilled with the result.

Although I am trying to give Obama a chance, I liked Bush better and am sad to see him leave. He had a few policies I didn’t agree with, such as increasing AIDS funding for Africa, spending so much money on the Iraq War, and increasing airport security, but overall I think he was one of our better presidents.

Wow! My third post in one day!

Well, I think it deserves mentioning that Congress failed to overturn President Bush’s veto of the SCHIP bill! This is a victory for everyone who opposes socialized medicine and supports freedom from excessive government intervention. Congrats to all the representatives who stuck to their guns and voted against this bill.

Go to Reuters if you would like to read the full story.