Posthuman Blues

"Hail to the Thief"

A democratic government has one defining function: to protect the rights of its citizens. The President is the human extension of this philosophy and nothing more. For all of the grandeur attached to the position, the President is, ultimately, a public servant.

But look at the god-like power we entrust to our Presidents. They're enamored of special interest groups to whom the "public good" is a laughable fantasy. They think nothing of committing the lives of men and women younger and smarter than they are to pointless death in the service of thinly concealed corporate machinations. And we let them get away with it.

Short of replacing the President with an impartial artificial intelligence (which, in the long run, seems imminently sensible), there are ways to counteract the petty dictatorship the office of President has become.

Consider locating a doctor. Communications technology has made it relatively easy for prospective patients to choose a doctor best equipped to their needs. Careful searching can locate the most qualified physicians for the malady in question. This freedom to choose has saved the lives of discerning patients who would otherwise find themselves at the mercy of incompetents.

This is in striking contrast to electing a worthy President. A typical election presents us with two idealogues who, we're reassured, want only the best for the country they've chosen to represent. Most of the time voters vote for a particular candidate not because they think he's particularly savvy or competent, but because he is simply the lesser of two evils.

Our current President has committed the U.S. and its reluctant allies to an Armageddon-style shoot-out with the Islamic world, as witnessed by the social, political and intellectual grievances precipitated by "Operation Iraqi Freedom." Thousands of the Iraqi citizens he sought to "liberate" died within the first weeks of conflict. Now, months after the obligatory "victory" photo-op in the ruins of Baghdad, casualties are escalating. Yesterday the United Nations embassy in Iraq was bombed. A few days before that a gas-line line was bombed, resulting in $7 million a day in lost revenue. Iraq's cities, patrolled by an occupation force with a curious penchant for opening fire on unarmed protesters, are waterless and without electricity.

Even a good President can miscalculate. But our current President acted both aggressively and mulishly against the best advice of the world community, of which the U.S. is an inextricably entrenched participant. The decision to "liberate" Iraq, founded on the "threat" posed by nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, had nothing to do with the U.S.'s offensive against "terror" or with disposing Saddam Hussein from power. It most certainly had nothing to do with the best interests of the American people. We're left to confront a President whose ties to industrial interests and Christian Fundamentalist ideology are blindingly obvious. His actions are not remotely consistent with the public service role epitomized by his station.

How do we prevent future Presidential debacles? Simple: subject candidates to the same psychological screening processes enforced in the private sector. If a would-be President plans to use you or your children as human fodder in a spurious war, shouldn't you at least have the right to gauge his/her mental profile sans the boorish spin-doctoring that typifies election year politics? If contenders for the role of President are the altruists they expect us to believe, they should have no qualms about publicly submitting to lie-detector tests and stringent personality profiling.

This isn't to condemn the prospect of genuine leadership; a President need not be selfless. Ego and ambition are healthy traits that can be harnessed by a strong administration to institute change for the better. But, overwhelmingly, Presidential wannabes share the same tepid, myopic outlook. They offer more of the same and deliver the worst. Autographing flags and delivering speeches in military raiment may rouse some twisted variant of "patriotism" among the "Love It or Leave It" contingent, but it solves nothing. It doesn't absolve atrocity.

If we're to maintain a pretense of democracy, the office of President demands mutation. America cannnot withstand an endless procession of frauds.