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Fearless Philosophy For Free Minds: If I Were POTUS

Thursday, August 25, 2005

If I Were POTUS

Say Uncle asks the following question:


By some bizarre set of circumstances, you are the president as of now. Name the first 5 things you’d do. Level of difficulty: it must actually be stuff the president is constitutionally allowed to do.”

Anyone who follows politics and has strong opinions has at one time or another thought about what he or she would do as president. I’m no exception, so I thought I would play along this time. Here is my list.

1. My very fist act as president would be to pardon all persons convicted of consensual crimes (a.k.a. victimless crimes). All nonviolent drug offenders, prostitutes/Johns, gamblers and others who committed no crimes against anyone other than themselves or against any ‘non-consenting other’ would be immediately released from prison. This pardon would stay in effect for the duration of my presidency (which would effectively end the war on drugs at least temporarily). My policy would be that there would be no prison time for persons who do not threaten other persons’ life, liberty, or property through force or fraud.

2. I would recommend to congress for the money saved from the release of the pardoned ‘criminals’ to be spent securing the boarders and the various ports of entry into the United States.

3. I would put congress on a diet by vetoing any budget which contained pork. Sure, my veto would likely be overridden at some point, but my name would not be attached to any wasteful spending.

4. Un-nominate John Roberts to SCOTUS and nominate Janice Rodgers Brown. Roberts is probably OK but JRB would be a much better selection.

5. Cabinent and high-level advisors:
Economics advisor: Walter E. Williams
Secretary of Defense: Eric Cowperthwaite
Press Secretary: John Stossel (I would just love hearing him telling reporters “Give me a break!” when they ask stupid questions)
Attorney General: Larry Elder
Solicitor General: Neal Boortz
Secretary of State: Thomas Sowell
Surgeon General: Drew Penski (of Loveline fame)
U.N. Ambassador: Brad Warbainy (he did such a great job representing us in Europe : )

I’ll have to give some additional thought to the rest of my cabinet and advisors; I’ll update the list as they come to me.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, thanks for the hat tip on SecDef. Like I always say around the office, "those people should be damn glad they don't work for me!"

Don't forget Treasury, which is a crucial cabinet position for/against freedom, depending on which side of the coin you are on. I'd think that Jacqueline, someone from Catallarchy, Perry Eidelbus, or the Cafe Hayek crew would all be good choices. For that matter, anyone who has ever run a business, performed cost modeling, etc. AND believes in liberty would be a good choice, compared to what we get nowadays.

How about Glenn Reynolds for SCOTUS?

12:17 PM  
Blogger Stephen Littau said...

Those are all great suggestions Eric. See folks, this is why I want him to be in my cabinet.

12:21 PM  

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