If my semester hadn’t just started I would have written something on the president’s speech last night. These speeches are so defiantly contemptuous of reality that the estate of George Orwell must be demanding royalties. That anyone (especially so-called conservatives and libertarians) could actually be falling for this pathetic propaganda package leaves me speechless. It’s tempting to write an article called “Duh.”
Here’s a memorable line: “We will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom, and to make our own nation more secure.”
Who, exactly, is “we”? Bush’s salary comes from the public dole, so he’s certainly not included. His friends in the business world are getting lucrative contracts because of this “war on terror,” so they’re not “we,” either. Government wins more power, more “patriotic” loyalty among the population, etc., so they’re also not part of the “we.”
Ah, the state: the only institution in the world that can rip off its hapless clients and then have the sheer gall to say that “we” are all making sacrifices. No, “we” — as in the people — are making them. Bush should have said, “_You_ will do whatever my insane advisers deem necessary, _you_ will pay whatever price they come up with….” How liberating it is to view the state through a Rothbardian lens!
12:15 pm on September 8, 2003
