Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

In my opinion, President Clinton and the gang of thieves, murderers, and assorted scoundrels that surround him were until recently the greatest threat to liberty in American politics. To my distress, I now recognize that there is an even greater threat to our future looming on the horizon.

The Republican party has manufactured a lot of propaganda claiming to advocate reduced government intrusion in the private lives of the citizenry, and a return to the original principles on which our nation was founded. The recent public statements by Republican candidate Dole have now exposed the cynical deceptions in their lies.

The platform statement committing a Republican dominated government to use the coercive power of the federal government to enforce the religious dogma of the Christian right regarding abortion has already caused many to question the Republican claims. Forcing a woman to carry to term an unwanted pregnancy is about as intrusive as a government can get. Only the reviled fascist and communist government run human breeding programs were a greater violation of a citizen's right to self determination.

Now that all of the reasonable alternatives have been eliminated and his nomination is secured, the pretender to the throne has finally shown his true fascist colors. Republican candidate Dole has now publicly stated his intention to use the military to enforce domestic policy. He states he will start by using the military in the "war on drugs", but any rational student of history knows that it won't end there. Clinton has already tried to create hysteria about terrorism in order to expand his powers, and Dole has been beating this drum as well.

Many conservatives and libertarians point out that the "war on drugs" has created far greater tragedies than the minor problems of abuse it was intended to solve, and has failed in every way just as badly as the prototype bad idea of alcohol prohibition. In practice, the "war on drugs" has proven to be a war on the rights of citizens and their property. The results of the "war on drugs" have been exactly the same as resulted from alcohol prohibition - increased consumption, expanded government police power, and the rise of organized crime.

The continued government support for the socially destructive "war on drugs" is solely about expanding the power of the police state. Having established their mandate with hemp, heroin and cocaine, the drug cops are aggressively expanding their list of controlled substances to include vitamins, most medications, and soon tobacco. Before long the drug cops will have a justification to force their way into the lives of every citizen.

One of the few rational things Clinton did was down play the artificially created hysteria about drugs, started weaning the paramilitary drug cops from their dependence on confiscated private property, and restricted their growing power. Many thinking Americans are already alarmed at the growth of paramilitary units in the justice department and the mass murders they have committed in the name of law enforcement. Dole wants to take the next step and bring in the heavy weapons of the standing army to impose the will of the federal government on an increasingly restive public.

The ability of repressive governments to use the military to impose their will on the citizenry has always been the most critical factor in the destruction of free societies. And while civilian governments have managed to commit political murders, empty the treasury, and pull off other crimes against their citizens, it has always required the involvement of the military to commit truly historic atrocities.

Our founding fathers went to great lengths to guarantee that the generals would never gain power in America. We've had ex-generals as presidents before, and as former high level military men they all recognized the extreme danger posed by the standing army. None of the former high level military men were willing to trust the army with any role in domestic policy. As a former foot soldier, Dole obviously lacks a true understanding of the military. Dole still retains the delusion, so necessary in the ranks of blindly obedient cannon fodder, that the officer corps can solve any problem.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to find a preference between the choice of evils we are offered in the coming election. Historically it has been easier to remove socialist governments than military dictatorships. Socialists tend to lose interest after they've bankrupted the country and the fun's over. Military governments have been consistently unwilling to give up power until they've destroyed everything of value in the country - or caused the neighboring countries to band together to eliminate the villains from the outside.

I can bury my guns in oil cloth against the day they may be needed to restore liberty if Clinton manages to outlaw them. Clinton's taxes already guarantee that soon I won't have any property left I'd need a gun to defend against criminals. If Americans ever recover their interest in freedom again in the future, patriots can manufacture new guns in any machine shop. Pakistani gunsmiths have for years built AK-47's with nothing but a pile of scrap metal, a hot fire, and assorted hand tools.

But there is nothing any of us can do to increase our odds of survival when Dole's storm troopers blast their way into our homes responding to an "anonymous call" that there's a drug suspect or terrorist hiding inside. The sole purpose of the military is to break things and kill people. No rational government with any respect for its citizens would ever turn such a purposefully destructive entity loose on its own people. No citizenry with any respect for itself would tolerate a government that attempted to use the military against it.

Neither candidate for president truly stands for reducing the intrusion of government into our private lives. The question in the next election has become which gang of villains will be the most difficult to survive. It now appears that the criminal Clinton may be less of a threat than the fascist Dole. At least Clinton and the liberal media make a half hearted effort to keep his crimes discrete. Dole has proclaimed his fascism as his guiding principle. Perhaps the best we can hope for is a Republican congress and Democrat president, thereby preserving the current deadlock and minimizing the harm either can do to us.