As he did on so many occasions speaking about so many different subjects, Benjamin Franklin said it best:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
To which we can only add the the historical truth which has so often proved Ben's adage: "Nor do they achieve either liberty or safety."
On November 3, within a few hours of Mr Kerry's concession of the election victory to Mr Bush, the $US index, which had rallied over the two previous days, had closed at a new 2004 and post January 2002 bear market low. One day after that, on November 4, the $US spot future price of Gold, which had slumped by $US 7.40 on election day, had closed at a new 2004 and post 2001 bull market high. By the end of the week on November 5, the spot future $US Gold price had closed at 16-year highs while the $US index had slumped more than a full point below the previous bear market lows it had set back in February.
It is being said - increasingly - in the media "washup" of the election, both inside and outside the US, that the deciding "issue" which won for Mr Bush was "morality". It would seem that in modern politics, anything goes. Any amount of lies, malfeasance, misrepresentation, character assasination, hypocricy, venality, and good old fashioned corruption is fine - as long as you're MORAL!
American politics has come full circle in about three generations. Seventy-two years ago, in the campaign of 1932, it was the Democrats under their new candidate FDR who were railing against government interference in everyday life, big spending and taxing, the burgeoning load of regulation, and monetary inflation through the Fed. The Democrats and FDR won, and proceeded to dive head first into all the activities they had fulminated against from their campaigning pulpits. Four years later, they were re-elected. Three years later, a war started in Europe. A year after that, they were elected for a third time. And in 1944, with the war still going on, FDR got a fourth term.
In 2000, the Republicans campaigned on exactly the same sort of "issues" which the Democrats had campaigned on in 1932. Into that mix, the Republican candidate, Mr Bush, sang the praises of a more "humble" US foreign policy. The Republicans and GWB won and proceeded to dive head first into all the activities they had fulminated against from their campaigning pulpits. A year later, there was the terrorist attack of 9/11. A year and a half after that, the US attacked and occupied Iraq. And in 2004, having acted in the precise opposite way to every promise they made to get elected in 2000 (just as the Democrats under FDR did in his first term), GWB was re-elected.
Two myths have surrounded American politics ever since FDRs first term in 1932-36. The first is the myth that the Republicans are the war-mongers. In fact, every war and "police action" since 1932 - with the exception of Gulf War I in 1991 and the present Iraq conflict - has been started under a Democrat Administration. In both Korea and Vietnam, the Democrats got in and the Republicans got out. The other myth is the one that says that the Democrats are the "big government" party and the Republicans are the "small-government party". It is a fact that the biggest increases in both government spending and indebtedness have taken place under Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, Republicans all.
In actual fact, the Democrats are the party of big government and the Republicans are the party of BIGGER government. The sole, but important, modern distinction between the two is that it is the Republicans who are more enamoured with, and therefore more ruthless in the pursuit of, the US as an Imperial nation.
That being the case, it is also the case that it is the Republicans who are the clearer and more present danger to the dwindling handful of rights and freedoms left to the American people. Historically (with Britain a partial, but only a partial, exception), the size of an empire is inversely proportional to the liberty and individual rights enjoyed by the citizens of the seat of that empire. If there has ever been a laboratory demonstration of the truth of that historical observation, it is the first term of the Administration of George W. Bush.
No matter. Despite the chasm between word and deed displayed by the first FDR Administration, FDR was elected in a landslide in 1936. Despite an equivalent (arguably even wider) chasm displayed by the first GWB Administration, GWB was elected in 2004. Nope, it wasn't a landslide, but it was a bigger victory than his first one.
The problem faced by the American people is one faced by the people in most modern "democracies". It is exacerbated in the case of the US, however, because of the Imperial drive of the party in power. The Democrats do not possess this drive to the equivalent degree, but they cannot effectively refute the stated policies of the Republicans because to do so, they would have to stop being Democrats. The Democrats want bigger government to further what they call "social justice". The Republicans want it to further what they call the "freedoms and liberties" of Americans. The Democrats want to "co-operate" with the rest of the world in building and shoring up government power over the individual. The Republicans simply want to impose their power on the world.
To effectively oppose what the Republicans propose, the Democrats would have to totally repudiate more than seventy years of the Democratic party. This they cannot do, as illustrated so starkly by the Kerry campaign. As a result, the US is stuck with the more virulent and therefore dangerous version of BIG government, the Republican variety.
There is only one way to fight an idea, and that is with a better idea. As a shining example that this can be done, even in the midst of the American politics of today, we give you the example of the political career of the honourable Mr Ron Paul. When the most spiteful, divisive, and outright demagogic political campaign in US post war history is being claimed to have been won on the basis of "morality", then "politics as usual" is nearing its use by date.
Mr Kerry won the coasts, Mr Bush won the rest, that part of the US referred to by those on the coasts as "flyover country". The people of "middle America" are aware that they are sneered at by the "intelligentsia", and hold them in very well earned contempt. The "coasters" are wringing their hands at the prospect that the "middle Americans" have had enough of being socially manipulated for their own good. The tragic farce of the situation is that both sides delude themselves while the quest for power OVER their lives and freedoms goes on unabated and unchecked.
The intelligentsia's version of "morality" is the forcible re-distribution of wealth from those who have earned it to those who haven't, with themselves being the ones doing the re-distributing. Middle America's version of "morality" is the act of ignoring the most blatant of lies and the most venal of actions while "priding" themselves on their opposition to such things as homosexual marriage and a woman's right to control her own body. Strip away the rhetoric and the manner of dress and there isn't a hell of a lot of difference.
As we said at the top, Gold has (a LOT of) work to do. There have never been many physical symbols of true morality in the world. Gold, in its function as money, is certainly one of them. As we say at the end of our essay entitled The Case For Gold: "...because the money you use is totally controlled by your government, dear reader, so are you. That is the case for Gold as money.". In the light of the election, and the most popular "reason" given for Mr Bush's victory in the election, think about that carefully.