7 ms·

I was certain that Bush Jr. was going to go down in history as the worst president in my lifetime. But if Obama doesn't straighten this out soon, it's going to

I was certain that Bush Jr. was going to go down in history as the worst president in my lifetime. But if Obama doesn't straighten this out soon, it's going to be him. Which is very disappointing, because he showed so much promise before he was elected. But under his watch, whether directly or indirectly, he's created the least free regime of any president ever elected in the US.

newnewnew 13y ago
What if it turns out that each is worse than the last?
- msandford 13y ago
  A bunch of libertarians are fond of saying that each president eventually makes you nostalgic for the last one. EDIT: It was actually Calvin Trillin, but I read it on a libertarian blog: http://archive.mises.org/16107/bushs-huge-budget-numbers-blamed-on-obama/ http://archive.mises.org/16107/bushs-huge-budget-numbers-bla...
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
knowaveragejoe 13y ago
To be fair, there's never been another presidency with the current combination of technological and societal factors on the scale there is today, so a direct comparison isn't easy to make.
- spoiledtechie 13y ago
  We have had the tech ever since the internet was invented. Don't fool your self and try to find another way to defend our current sitting president.
  - iaskwhy 13y ago
    But nowadays everyone is connected which makes a huge difference.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    Right, nobody has ever engaged in any surveillance before Barack Obama. As someone who 'works for a large defense contractor' you are obviously expert in this area.
  - knowaveragejoe 13y ago
    Er, that's irrelevant - we've never had the societal forces provided by the technologies further up the stack from the actual networking(i.e. Facebook and the like).
rayiner 13y ago
Less free than under Lincoln, who essentially governed under martial law? Less free than under Wilson, during whose presidency Bureau of Prohibition ran roughshod through the nation searching for illegal booze? Less free than under Nixon, who initiated the "war on drugs" and Reagan, who really militarized it?
- stdgy 13y ago
  Definitely less free than under Wilson. Prohibition was a failure on all fronts[1], and did significantly increase the prison population. But it has nothing on modern drug policy[2]. [1]: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1...
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Incarceration rates aren't the only measure, though. Prohibition agents invaded the privacy and property of ordinary mainstream Americans in a way that in the drug war has been limited mainly to minority communities.
    - pkinsky 13y ago
      If by "ordinary, mainstream" you mean white, you need to remember that the Irish, the Polish, etc. were not considered white at this time. (not trying to be racist, just trying to accurately describe a racist system)
      - rayiner 13y ago
        I don't mean white. Prohibition agents didn't just hassle the Irish and the Polish (though they did particularly focus on immigrants). The invasive nature of Prohibition extended to everyone, across racial lines. Arguably that's why the drug war has lasted so much longer than Prohibition--so far the major injustices of the drug war have been limited to people outside the social mainstream.
guelo 13y ago
All of these programs started under Bush. Obama has tried to give legal cover to some of the programs that Bush was conducting illegally. He has ended other illegal programs such as "enhanced interrogations", aka torture. I guess which one is worse depends on which one you think is scarier, a reckless cowboy or a careful efficient crime boss.
- SimHacker 13y ago
  http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Gustavo_Fring http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Gustavo_Fring
rollo_tommasi 13y ago
It's a mistake to think that the Presidents are really in the driving seat when it comes to issues like this. None of them since Eisenhower come out of the military establishment or have any deep background in security policy, so they're reliant on, and credulous of, advisers who are completely bound to the military-intelligence-security-industrial complex. Obama has dozens of generals and spy chiefs and policy "experts" telling him that if he veers off course the sky will come crashing down on his head. So will the next President. No one with the immense responsibility of a modern President is going to be able to bring themselves to overrule the expert "advice" of the entrenched mil-sec-intel establishment unless they're already very thoroughly acquainted with its failings. It is folly to expect a single man to be able to fix this mess. The only way out is to fix the legislative and policy failures that allow the whole structure to exist.
- justin66 13y ago
  > Obama has dozens of generals and spy chiefs and policy "experts" telling him that if he veers off course the sky will come crashing down on his head. So will the next President. True, but it's actually worse than that. Imagine how the public itself would react to a president who dealt with emerging security threats by saying things like "that's a real threat but we're not going to create anything new to deal with it." The public would not be kind to them, even though it's the right answer in most cases.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- ihsw 13y ago
  That's fine, the problem is Obama is a liar and a hypocrite. Yes he didn't know that he was making empty promises, but usually when you sign up for a job you know ahead of time whether you can do the job. Lying during the interview process usually gets you disqualified with prejudice, but he was elected again. It'd be nice if he apologized after discovering that his promises were a bit excessive.
  - 13y ago
res0nat0r 13y ago
These type of comments have shown that lately HN has jumped the shark. Calm down with the hyperbole and lets get back to talking about cool and interesting technical topics vs. rhetoric like this.
indlebe 13y ago
Quoting the hip-hop artist KRS-1: "Barack is like the manager of Burger King. All presidents are, including Bush. It's like this... When your fries are cold, if your burger's not done right... you go back to Burger King (America, or your government), and you say, "My burger's cold; I want new fries!" First, you go to the cashier... that's the courts. You argue to the courts... The courts... If you can't get no justice with the cashier, you say, "Let me see the manager! I want to go to Supreme Court. I want to see the president." The manager comes out, "Hi, what can I do for you?" Now the manager can override the decisions of the cashier, but you never get to see the franchise owner of Burger King. If you really have a problem with your burger, you need to go see the franchise owner. We need to go to the top. Or to the bottom [moans]. We need to go where the real architecture of government is. And it's not in a president. It's in a global scheme."
- pnathan 13y ago
  That's a pretty lucid description of the power structure. Except I'm not sure there's a "top".... unless you want to simply point at the whole system of US goverment and its culture.
anigbrowl 13y ago
But if Obama doesn't straighten this out soon, it's going to be him. Absurd. The NSA programs that have been in the news lately predate Obama's presidency and were either instituted as part of the Patriot act or existed earlier than that. Hell, when I was growing up in Ireland in the 1970s there were two NSA listening stations on a hill visible from my house, to listen in on the chatter of Russian pilots from the nearby airport where they had a concession. http://farm1.static.flickr.com/109/265122067_954d74fa20.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/109/265122067_954d74fa20.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON I mean, criticize Obama by all means, but 'the least free regime of any President ever elected'? GMAFB. During the Bush presidency that you mention, protesters against the Iraq war had to make their arguments from within fenced cages referred to as 'free speech zones.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone Other historical examples that spring to mind are the mass internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2, the red scare of the 50s, massive government overreach during the prohibition era, and so on. I'm not asking you support Obama, but this sort of historical revisionism is just ridiculous.

newnewnew 13y ago

What if it turns out that each is worse than the last?

msandford 13y ago
A bunch of libertarians are fond of saying that each president eventually makes you nostalgic for the last one. EDIT: It was actually Calvin Trillin, but I read it on a libertarian blog: http://archive.mises.org/16107/bushs-huge-budget-numbers-blamed-on-obama/ http://archive.mises.org/16107/bushs-huge-budget-numbers-bla...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

knowaveragejoe 13y ago

To be fair, there's never been another presidency with the current combination of technological and societal factors on the scale there is today, so a direct comparison isn't easy to make.

spoiledtechie 13y ago
We have had the tech ever since the internet was invented. Don't fool your self and try to find another way to defend our current sitting president.
- iaskwhy 13y ago
  But nowadays everyone is connected which makes a huge difference.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Right, nobody has ever engaged in any surveillance before Barack Obama. As someone who 'works for a large defense contractor' you are obviously expert in this area.
- knowaveragejoe 13y ago
  Er, that's irrelevant - we've never had the societal forces provided by the technologies further up the stack from the actual networking(i.e. Facebook and the like).

rayiner 13y ago

Less free than under Lincoln, who essentially governed under martial law? Less free than under Wilson, during whose presidency Bureau of Prohibition ran roughshod through the nation searching for illegal booze? Less free than under Nixon, who initiated the "war on drugs" and Reagan, who really militarized it?

stdgy 13y ago
Definitely less free than under Wilson. Prohibition was a failure on all fronts[1], and did significantly increase the prison population. But it has nothing on modern drug policy[2]. [1]: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1...
- rayiner 13y ago
  Incarceration rates aren't the only measure, though. Prohibition agents invaded the privacy and property of ordinary mainstream Americans in a way that in the drug war has been limited mainly to minority communities.
  - pkinsky 13y ago
    If by "ordinary, mainstream" you mean white, you need to remember that the Irish, the Polish, etc. were not considered white at this time. (not trying to be racist, just trying to accurately describe a racist system)
    - rayiner 13y ago
      I don't mean white. Prohibition agents didn't just hassle the Irish and the Polish (though they did particularly focus on immigrants). The invasive nature of Prohibition extended to everyone, across racial lines. Arguably that's why the drug war has lasted so much longer than Prohibition--so far the major injustices of the drug war have been limited to people outside the social mainstream.

guelo 13y ago

All of these programs started under Bush. Obama has tried to give legal cover to some of the programs that Bush was conducting illegally. He has ended other illegal programs such as "enhanced interrogations", aka torture. I guess which one is worse depends on which one you think is scarier, a reckless cowboy or a careful efficient crime boss.

SimHacker 13y ago
http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Gustavo_Fring http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Gustavo_Fring

rollo_tommasi 13y ago

It's a mistake to think that the Presidents are really in the driving seat when it comes to issues like this. None of them since Eisenhower come out of the military establishment or have any deep background in security policy, so they're reliant on, and credulous of, advisers who are completely bound to the military-intelligence-security-industrial complex. Obama has dozens of generals and spy chiefs and policy "experts" telling him that if he veers off course the sky will come crashing down on his head. So will the next President. No one with the immense responsibility of a modern President is going to be able to bring themselves to overrule the expert "advice" of the entrenched mil-sec-intel establishment unless they're already very thoroughly acquainted with its failings. It is folly to expect a single man to be able to fix this mess. The only way out is to fix the legislative and policy failures that allow the whole structure to exist.

justin66 13y ago
> Obama has dozens of generals and spy chiefs and policy "experts" telling him that if he veers off course the sky will come crashing down on his head. So will the next President. True, but it's actually worse than that. Imagine how the public itself would react to a president who dealt with emerging security threats by saying things like "that's a real threat but we're not going to create anything new to deal with it." The public would not be kind to them, even though it's the right answer in most cases.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
ihsw 13y ago
That's fine, the problem is Obama is a liar and a hypocrite. Yes he didn't know that he was making empty promises, but usually when you sign up for a job you know ahead of time whether you can do the job. Lying during the interview process usually gets you disqualified with prejudice, but he was elected again. It'd be nice if he apologized after discovering that his promises were a bit excessive.
- 13y ago

res0nat0r 13y ago

These type of comments have shown that lately HN has jumped the shark. Calm down with the hyperbole and lets get back to talking about cool and interesting technical topics vs. rhetoric like this.

indlebe 13y ago

Quoting the hip-hop artist KRS-1: "Barack is like the manager of Burger King. All presidents are, including Bush. It's like this... When your fries are cold, if your burger's not done right... you go back to Burger King (America, or your government), and you say, "My burger's cold; I want new fries!" First, you go to the cashier... that's the courts. You argue to the courts... The courts... If you can't get no justice with the cashier, you say, "Let me see the manager! I want to go to Supreme Court. I want to see the president." The manager comes out, "Hi, what can I do for you?" Now the manager can override the decisions of the cashier, but you never get to see the franchise owner of Burger King. If you really have a problem with your burger, you need to go see the franchise owner. We need to go to the top. Or to the bottom [moans]. We need to go where the real architecture of government is. And it's not in a president. It's in a global scheme."

pnathan 13y ago
That's a pretty lucid description of the power structure. Except I'm not sure there's a "top".... unless you want to simply point at the whole system of US goverment and its culture.

anigbrowl 13y ago

But if Obama doesn't straighten this out soon, it's going to be him. Absurd. The NSA programs that have been in the news lately predate Obama's presidency and were either instituted as part of the Patriot act or existed earlier than that. Hell, when I was growing up in Ireland in the 1970s there were two NSA listening stations on a hill visible from my house, to listen in on the chatter of Russian pilots from the nearby airport where they had a concession. http://farm1.static.flickr.com/109/265122067_954d74fa20.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/109/265122067_954d74fa20.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON I mean, criticize Obama by all means, but 'the least free regime of any President ever elected'? GMAFB. During the Bush presidency that you mention, protesters against the Iraq war had to make their arguments from within fenced cages referred to as 'free speech zones.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone Other historical examples that spring to mind are the mass internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2, the red scare of the 50s, massive government overreach during the prohibition era, and so on. I'm not asking you support Obama, but this sort of historical revisionism is just ridiculous.