The American Principate Or, The Right-Wing Dystopia That Wasn't

Writing stories in order to play on present-day political issues is walking a dangerous road, since the stories will lose much of their urgency if the political winds shift. This is especially dangerous if they're set in the present day, or in the very near future, since current events can render them obsolete. Let the following be a lesson to you...

One of my unfinished novels--which will almost certainly never see the light of day--is called The American Principate. The Principate refers to the early Imperial period in Rome. The Republic still survived--on paper--and the emperor was referred to as princeps or "first citizen." Instead of being a monarch, he just happened to have hold multiple Republican offices at the same time and command the majority of its military. However, the wider culture was so anti-monarchical that even the emperor couldn't openly call himself king.

How does this apply to the American context? Well, those of you who were politically aware during the presidency of George W. Bush will surely remember there was a lot of fear in certain circles of creeping dictatorship due to things like the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, etc. Things like Muslims being put in internment camps were bandied about as if they were plausible. This was mostly on the left (in particular on sites like DemocraticUnderground), although some Libertarians and dissident conservatives got in on it too. This supposed quote from Julius Caesar made the rounds on the Internet. That was when I started writing the book, to tap into that zeitgeist.

My scenario begins in 2007 with an Iranian nuclear test. The United States under a president who is not George W. Bush (cough) and Israel jointly raided the Iranian nuclear facilities. The Iranians retaliated by sinking the carrier USS Ronald Reagan (symbolizing the later repudiation of Reagan's ideals in his name by men who claim to revere him) in the Persian Gulf using a nuke modified to fit on one of their Sunburn missiles, although in retrospect I would have simply had them use "missile spam" to do it, with the nuke appearing later on. The United States nukes Tehran and launches another war of "regime change."

(If I were writing this now, the nuke would be a giant land-mine, since fitting a big first-generation atomic bomb onto a cruise missile and hoping it gets through a carrier battle group's defenses is REALLY hard to swallow. The nuking of Tehran would come in reprisal for the Iranians detonating said nuke under a large number of US ground troops during the actual invasion, delaying the pivotal events in the United States by weeks.)

This kicks off a massive antiwar movement in the US that the administration uses the Patriot Act and other ostensibly anti-terrorist measures to suppress. Protesters are interned in Guantanamo alongside real or alleged al-Qaeda members. The Secret Service assassinates Not-Bush for this (acting under the orders of dissident members of Congress) and Not-Cheney becomes president. He uses a combination of regular US Army units (most of whom follow his orders) and "Red State" National Guards to defeat Congress's forces (some regular troops but mostly "Blue State" National Guards) in a yearlong civil war. Most countries begin selling off American assets and calling in US debts as soon as the mayhem begins and it's the Chinese that save the Not-Cheney regime's bacon with some large loans--in exchange for a free hand against Taiwan and later the extradition of Chinese dissidents in the U.S. to be executed. The prologue depicts the destruction of the last major Congressional military force and the battlefield execution of Not Ron Paul, who was retreating with them to the Congressional strongholds in New England for a last stand.

Once firmly in power, Not-Cheney federalizes the electoral system in order to ensure that both major parties' delegations to his puppet Congress are sympathetic to his aims (i.e. Republicans like Ron Paul would be excluded and Democrats like Joe Lieberman permitted) and third parties are excluded entirely. When Islamists take control of Egypt and Saudi Arabia U.S. forces repress them and occupy those countries. Domestically the regime uses a guest-worker program to ensure it has adequate soldiers for the wars without a draft (that would risk popular discontent), buys off unions with an equipment-heavy military buildup that generates manufacturing jobs, and throws some bones to the Christian Right. The most notable is the suppression of pornography and even artistic nudity using the "erotoxin" argument (this to keep the appearance of legality, since explicitly doing so on Christian grounds would fail the "Lemon Test").

(The story itself takes place in 2015 and involves a college student given the choice between jail and the military who goes on the run and join a resistance group.)

Those of you reading this may be surprised I plotted this out, given how conservative I am on most political issues. However, most "right-wing dystopia" novels (think The Handmaid's Tale or the relatively new Christian Nation) are written by leftists and REALLY implausible. Although The Handmaid's Tale is a very well-written book, the back-story--the US military launching a coup and imposing a Christo-Taliban regime in which an obvious 1980s televangelist is a major figure and women are forbidden from reading and writing--is, simply put, not going to happen.

And Christian Nation, which depicts Sarah Palin (and more importantly, her successor) establishing an overt Christian theocracy, doesn't even have the quality-writing defense. The one person I've spoken to who thinks the book is remotely plausible is basically a Christian fundamentalist's straw-man of an atheist--he claims not to believe in the Christian God but pretty obviously hates Him. This is exemplified by how he kept a thread on my alternate-history forum on the movie Noah going for weeks asking questions about the film to obviously reinforce his own views--i.e. he asks if Noah's daughters-in-law are different races or is non-whiteness depicted as a punishment for sin, are the deaths of children depicted, etc.--rather than seeing it himself.

Although I have too much respect for Bush and Cheney as people (even if I disagreed with many of their actions and policies) to think they'd ever, EVER actually do this, my intention was to write something more subtle as a cautionary tale. The power of the Executive Branch, in particular in the realm of war, has been growing unhealthily over the last few decades. Our government becoming a a de facto presidential regime with representative government as window-dressing is a lot more realistic than the U.S. becoming an overt Christian theocracy or even a president declaring himself President-for-Life or even Emperor. It's easy to write off ridiculous scenarios like the other two books I've mentioned because they're implausible, but something subtle will make you think.

From a writing POV, if I'd sent this to publishers in 2004, I'd have good odds of selling it if it were good enough. However, once 2007 passed and Iran doesn't test a nuke and Bush leaves office like every other president before it, it would have been good only for the landfill.

Why I'm Not Voting for Romney or Obama

As those who have known for while awhile know, I've been self-identifying as a Libertarian since a road-to-Damascus moment about how there is no moral difference between nonviolent ownership of "assault weapons" and nonviolent marijuana smoking when I was in high school. Although I was too young to vote in the 2000 presidential election, I voted for the Libertarian Badnarik in 2004.

In 2008, I voted rather reluctantly for John McCain. I can't remember why--either something the Libertarian candidate that year did got on my nerves or perhaps there was something about Obama I really didn't like and I didn't want to risk helping Obama win Georgia. Although I'm drifting away from Libertarianism (more because I support government spending on education, science, and infrastructure), my views are sufficiently different from the two major parties that I'm not inclined to vote for either of them and I'm not going to vote for hard-leftists like the Greens.

However, although I haven't voted yet, I'm probably going to vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson. Although I have spoken out in favor of Republicans Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul, here's why I'm not interested in supporting either candidate.

Obama

One thing I didn't like about Obama back in 2008 was the whole cult-of-personality thing that coalesced around him, with him being "the one" who would bring "change." I'll give Obama credit that he tried to make a joke out of it rather than use it for some more sinister purpose, but that did rub me the wrong way.

One of the big reasons I didn't like him in 2008 was the born-alive controversy in Illinois. This isn't a matter of abortion in the first trimester or so of pregnancy when the fetus doesn't really have much in the way of a brain. If there's the possibility the fetus can survive outside the womb, it must be fairly far along. See this. This isn't even abortion anymore.

Although I shed no tears for Gadhafi and have flat-out recommended Obama claim credit for Gadhafi's death to look tough on foreign policy, Obama has claimed the U.S. contribution to the overthrow of Gadhafi did not require congressional approval. I do not believe that to be the case.

Obama does not oppose indefinite-detention provisions that violate the Fifth and may infringe on the First amendments.

And then there's Gunwalker.


Romney

For starters, Mitt Romney flip-flops when it's politically convenient. I have no beef with changing one's opinions based on new evidence--after all, that's what science is all about--but the timing of Romney's changing views on issues like gun control and abortion smell.

It's not like Romney opposes the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens either. If someone is killed in battle and is a U.S. citizen that's one thing, but if they're arrested, that's something else. The U.S. Constitution specifically says people can be charged with treason for making war on the U.S. and that's how to handle American members of AQ who are taken alive.

Mitt Romney also opposes online gambling, using downright nanny-state arguments in favor of keeping the ban. I don't gamble for money, but I don't care if anyone else does. If someone causes their family to suffer because they can't control their gambling, that's unfortunate, but it's not justification for the government to ban everyone from doing it.

Romney vowed to fight marijuana legalization "tooth and nail." Considering how Colorado has greatly benefited from "medical marijuana" and several states are voting on legalizing marijuana this fall, we might well have a major state-federal clash. Considering how the GOP claims to support state and local control, the federal government being aggressive on this issue is rather hypocritical.

I'll get to why I support Gary Johnson later, since I generally believe in providing positive solutions rather than just complaining.

Why I Voted For Ron Paul But Hope Romney Is The Nominee...

Georgia's early/advance voting started yesterday.  Although I posted on Facebook saying I would probably vote for Mitt Romney due to him being the most electable of the four remaining Republican candidates, I'm not a Romney fan by any stretch of the imagination--I think he's ignorant on some issues (when commenting on an arms-control treaty, he made some comment that sounded like he thought ballistic missiles were fired from bombers) and prone to changing his views based on convenience.  It's certainly possible he changed his views on abortion, for example, as a result of genuine conviction, but given the timing (i.e. running for the nomination of the national GOP, which is much more anti-abortion than the Massachusetts electorate), I'm skeptical.

In 2008, I was a Ron Paul supporter, but Paul's opposition to the bin Laden raid, a comment he made about how the troops would come home faster if their air-conditioning was de-funded, and the possibility he was not being honest about his role in the bizarre newsletters that went out under his name in the 1990s made me rather leery of him.  Plus, even though I believe in smaller government, he takes it a bit too far and there will definitely be the perception of him as a radical.  However, the candidate I came to support--Jon Huntsman--fizzled.

However, Rick Santorum is too socially conservative to win the general election, while Newt Gingrich has the whole "marry-cheat-divorce-remarry repeat" thing going.  However, based on this poll, which is a composite of other polls, it's going to be one of them who wins Georgia when the primaries come on March 6.

If Romney was likely to win Georgia, there's a good chance I would have voted for him since the more states Gingrich or Santorum win, the more likely they are to get the nomination and get destroyed by Obama in November.  However, one of those two is going to win Georgia barring some kind of last-minute Romney surge or Gingrich/Santorum implosion and so it's time to think strategically.

At this point, I think Paul and his people know he can't win, but the goal is to get so many delegates that he can have an influence on the party platform.  That's something I can get behind--if some Paulite positions like not attacking Iran get made part of the platform, that will be both good for the country and will strengthen the nominee against Obama.  Since Georgia is not a winner-take-all state, my voting for Paul could help him get a delegate here and there.

If Paul Winning Will Marginalize Iowa, Santorum Will Do Worse...

I recently noticed a slew of articles taking shots at the Iowa caucuses that seemed awfully coincidental with polls showing that Ron Paul had a good shot at winning them.  Here's one.  Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Iowans will suffer if they vote for Paul, such as this one, from the New York Post, along with another from Yahoo.  Here's Chris Wallace weighing in.

Now it seems that Rick Santorum is rising in the polls, as an alternative to Romney.  Politico confirms this.

The whole "Iowa better not vote for Paul" meme is based largely on how Paul supposedly isn't going to win the general election against Obama or even the Republican primary.  However, that argument applies even more strongly to Santorum for the following reasons:

*Santorum lost his U.S. Senate seat by a huge margin in 2006.  Read all about it here. I remember a lot of mockery about Al Gore losing his home state in 2000.  If Gore had won Tennessee and its 11 electoral votes, he'd have beaten Bush, Florida or not.  Come the general election, Obama can bring this up to attack Santorum.  And all the stuff Casey used to slam Santorum can be used by Obama for the same purpose.

*Meanwhile, a surprisingly successful Internet campaign has made the top search for "Santorum" a rather gross sexual thing.  Check out the Wikipedia article for more.  That's going to make it even harder for people to take him seriously and can you imagine all the awkward questions kids who do an Internet search for him because he's the presidential nominee are going to ask their parents?

*Santorum said he would launch a military strike on Iran if they did not admit inspectors to their nuclear sites.  Given how Obama got elected in part because he said he would end the Iraq War, even threatening to launch a new war (or even something equivalent to an old-school punitive expedition and not an outright invasion/occupation) is not going to go over well with the electorate at all.

*Santorum's very socially conservative views cost him in Pennsylvania and they're going to cost him in the general election.  For example, the public is growing more supportive of gay marriage, something Santorum is strongly against.  I am willing to say that a decade ago, a show like Modern Family featuring a gay couple adopting a child and being generally liked by everybody wouldn't have been made, and neither would the show Glee.  Meanwhile, he has advocated against contraception.  Given that Santorum is a conservative Catholic, him holding that view makes sense, but I don't think someone who intends to use his role as president to denounce contraception is going to be all that popular with female voters, especially since hormonal birth control is used to treat menstrual cramps and other conditions.  Santorum has specifically criticized the mandate for insurance companies to cover birth control, but this is something that's proven rather popular.

The United States has been growing more and more social liberal in recent years, something that's backed up by The Emerging Democratic Majority and Whistling Past Dixie: How the Democrats Can Win Without the South.  Santorum's social conservatism, regardless of whether it's morally right or not, is going to be lethal in the general election if he gets the Republican nod.

Now, I am not suggesting someone be so unprincipled as to decide on their morals due to opinion polls, but the purpose of the Republican primary is to choose the best candidate to defeat Obama in 2012.  If Ron Paul's views, the racist newsletters that went out under his name, etc. make him unelectable and if his un-electability will discredit the Iowa caucus, then electing Santorum will do the same thing--only worse.

Ron Paul Rises In Iowa

A couple of interesting articles this morning I found this morning, one via Twitter and one via my home-page.

Paul gears up for long primary slog

Paul stuck through for the entire process in 2008, although his impact was minimal at the end of the day.  However, this time around he's got more money and the recent economic crisis will have bolstered his credibility.  I heard some talk radio host last night who said it was possible Paul could win Iowa, which leads into my next article...

Paul strength may help Romney in Iowa

This could be a problem in the long run, since if all the people in the GOP who don't want a Romney nomination split between too many candidates, Romney will win the nomination by default.  On the other hand, Romney losing a state to a candidate many Republicans deride as having no chance would be a major black mark on his record.

It'd be really interesting if nobody wins a majority of delegates and we get a brokered Republican convention.  According to the Wikipedia, there hasn't been a brokered convention in decades.

Who knows?  Maybe that'll be Huntsman's chance to shine, since although he's been trying to run to Romney's left, his actual governing bona fides are downright Reaganite in economics, which the Republican Party as a whole is likely go for, while his more socially-liberal views will make him more acceptable to the American electorate as a whole.

(Those who disagree should check out The Emerging Democratic Majority and Whistling Past Dixie: How The Democrats Can Win Without the South.  Really hard-core social conservatism is not going to be a winning issue in the long run, at least on the national level.)

Plus Paul might get some of his  more useful views incorporated into the GOP platform.  I doubt it'd be anything radical like the gold standard, but stronger opposition to pork, a more restrained foreign policy, etc. might be doable.

Ron Paul Ad Criticizes Newt Gingrich

I'm all for people changing their positions based on evidence rather than being inflexible and rigid, but based on the stuff about money, I think Newt's approach to many of the issues herein is not based on examination of the evidence.

(I'm thinking the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac business and health-care.  I don't think the people who believe global warming is human-caused and a problem have got the money needed to sway him.)

Newt is smarter than the average bear in the Republican field at the moment and I'd support him over Paul (due to the bin Laden raid) and Romney and would probably vote for him over Obama, but this isn't a good sign at all.  And given he has written alternate-history fiction (something I'm interested in), that's saying something.

And Ron Paul's ads have gotten better.  When I supported Ron Paul in 2008, I remember a really goofy television ad featuring a bunch of people who really couldn't act sitting around a restaurant, with one of them rather unsubtly saying "I'm going to vote for Ron Paul."  In TVTropes terms, Narm.

I Write About Jon Huntsman

Earlier this year, I posted here about why I supported Mitch Daniels as the 2012 Republican nominee.  Unfortunately, Daniels decided not to run this year.

So I set out in search of a new candidate.  Mitt Romney has an alarming tendency to change his views to gather popularity, while Rick Perry doesn't seem to believe in evolution and has interfered with the investigation about whether Texas may have executed an innocent man.  Rick Santorum actually used the phrase "man on dog" in an interview, while Ron Paul, who I once supported quite zealously, said he would not have authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

And then I found Jon Huntsman, who is fiscally conservative but doesn't have social views that would repel a growing percentage of the American electorate.

(Check out the book The Emerging Democratic Majority.  As the U.S. grows less white, less Protestant, and less Christian generally, Religious Right-type views are more and more going to be an albatross around any candidate's neck.)

Here's a column I wrote about Huntsman for my newspaper.

Don't overlook lesser-known GOP candidate in 2012

Let me emphasize this is NOT an endorsement, since my newspaper does not endorse individual candidates.  However, it is a list of reasons why Huntsman would make a good candidate.  And for good measure, I don't take shots at any of the other candidates--instead, I merely explain Huntsman's strengths.

Now to find a Huntsman group in Georgia.  In 2008, there were Ron Paul groups and I was even a member of one.  However, searching Meetup.com found nothing Huntsman-related in Atlanta and Googling "Georgians for Huntsman" only found me an anemic Twitter feed.

The Georgia Republican primary is February 7, 2012.  There really isn't all that much time left.

P.S.

If you all are ever in Little Five Points in Atlanta, be sure to check out Fox Brothers Bar-B-Q.  It's better than Shane's or any other BBQ place I've even been to.  I especially like the brisket.

Mitch Daniels: A Good Republican Choice for 2012

I've been pondering the possible Republican nominees for 2012 and here are some thoughts:

Firstly, a candidate who is too socially-conservative is not going to be a contender nationally.  Although I admit a bias against social-conservatism-as-government-policy, it's not just my personal distaste coming into play here.  American demographic trends are against social-conservatism.

http://nationaljournal.com/magazine/u-s-transforming-into-majority-minority-nation-faster-than-expected-20110331

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/pew_research_center_values.php?nr=1

And those are just magazine articles.  The Emerging Democratic Majority and Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South also corroborate this position.

Huckabee, Palin, etc. will probably win the South and Midwest, but they will probably lose urban areas and due to increasing urbanization in the United States, they will be doomed.  Look at Clinton's 1996 victory-map--Dole won the "heartland" and still lost.  Bush nearly did so in 2000 and McCain did lose in 2008.

Now, this does not mean I am suggesting the nominee not be socially-conservative personally.  A president who lives their values as opposed to paying lip service to them while violating them in private (Gingrich and Vitter come to mind) would be much better for the cause of social-conservatism than trying to use the government to impose these values on a society that increasingly rejects them and provoking a backlash.

Secondly, Republicans should nominate a candidate who can be taken seriously.  It is very hard for me to take Sarah Palin and Donald Trump seriously as politicians due to them being reality-TV stars, despite other accomplishments they may have had.

(I'm thinking more about Trump when I say that, although I'm not going to hate on Palin as being a "quitter" like some leftists will.  She quit because defending herself against her political enemies' lawsuits cost the state money--the same people calling her "quitter" are the ones whose behavior led to her resignation in the first place.  My beef with Palin has to do with her misreading part of the health-care bill and getting the "death panels" meme started.  If that comes out in a debate, she's dog meat.)

Furthermore, Trump is a Birther or is at least pandering to them with his "I'm sending investigators to Hawaii" routine.  I don't think conspiracy-theorists are going to do well in the general election--look at how people look down at the John Birch Society, for example.

Also, the candidate should not be too inexperienced.  I rather like Bobby Jindal, but I don't think he's experienced enough quite yet.

Right now, I'm thinking Mitch Daniels would be the best candidate.  As governor, he turned around the financial situation of the state of Indiana and his call for a truce on social issues should help make him more electable at the national level.  I notice some similarities with Ron Paul, although Daniels seems to support the drug war (he cites his own arrest for smoking weed as a college student as a good thing, or at least he did in 1989).

Getting him through the Republican primaries, however, could be rather problematic.  The "truce on social issues" thing has already gotten a lot of people upset.

Rand Paul Victorious in Kentucky

Rand Paul, son of 2008 Republican candidate Ron Paul, has just won the Kentucky Republican primary for the U.S. Senate race in November.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/us/politics/19elect.html

It's not clear who he will be facing on the Democratic side, as I don't think the results of that election are in yet.

As my friends know, I supported Ron Paul in 2008, writing a great many letters to likely primary voters in several states on his behalf.  One of them even wrote back.  His letter started out with "are you nuts" and accused Ron Paul of being some Perot-like figure, even though he repeatedly said he would not run on a third-party ticket.

As we all know, Paul ultimately lost, and lost badly (he won very few delegates and no states), but although he failed, the network the father established may well have helped the son out significantly.  The younger Paul's political opponents tried to make a big deal about how he was heavily supported by people from out of state, but that didn't seem to work this time.

All that remains to be seen now is if he can win in November.  That would be rather cool, as he represents the side of the Republican Party that is fiscally conservative and sticks to it, unlike the GOP of the Bush years that helped run up an ungodly amount of debt.  He also is a big fan of restricting government surveillance powers and improving citizens' privacy, something the GOP appears to have forgotten with the Patriot Act and the statist attitude that no honest citizen has anything to hide.

I wonder how the winning Democrat will campaign against him.  Paul's Republican opponent had a site called "Rand Paul's Strange Ideas" which tried to make him sound like a lefty moonbat.  It would be highly entertaining if the Democrat ended up trying to out-conservative him.