Today in Scotland, we celebrate the recent success of the re-election of George W. Bush, whose triumph over Senator Kerry has emphatically re-endorsed U.S. Christian family and moral values to general rejoicing. On this occasion, the true expression of U.S. popular will prevailed without challenge or question. Bravo!
Over here in Europe, no one votes on moral issues. Election issues are reduced to such secular notions as jobs, tax, health, education, the economy and occasionally foreign policy - so it is doubly refreshing to see the world's Premier Democracy voting for higher ideals. To see the U.S. voting conclusively for the abolition of abortion, the biblical truth of creationism, the blocking of stem cell research, and the blocking of the Kyoto Agreement on global warming, is a wonderful example to the rest of the world.
Furthermore, it is good to know that this moral stand will be enforced on third-world countries by the withdrawal of foreign aid to the poorest countries that allow abortion, despite the negative effects it will have in combating AIDS.
God in his wisdom has also granted circumstances (the appointment of new U.S. Supreme Court judges) to make this stand last for a generation, not just for 'four more years.' Truly, the U.S. is blessed.
President George Bush maintains that Saddam was behind Osama and the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, so the fact that Saddam has been captured has made the U.S. (and the world) safer - and the electorate agrees. The doctrine of pre-emptive strike has been endorsed, with or without WMDs.
President Bush tells the world that the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners needs re-writing and who can doubt him? Under this convention, prisoners of war had certain rights which are outdated in the modern world - such as forbidding the use of torture.
The judicial system also requires modification for "The War on Terrorism." It used to be the case that prisoners had to be accused of committing a crime, given access to lawyers, tried, and, if found guilty, sentenced to a term of imprisonment. In the new world of President Bush, the suspicion that someone might be thinking of committing a crime, or of supporting the wrong group, or even of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is deemed sufficient reason for detaining him. In the case of Saddam, we are told that he was thinking of making WMDs in the future, so this justified the war.
The prisoner cannot be charged because he has not committed a crime - and because he has not committed a crime, he obviously has no use for a lawyer to defend him. Neither can he be given a determinate sentence, as there is no way to prove that in the future he might not commit a crime, and therefore, if released, be subject to immediate re-arrest.
This new doctrine is so good for detaining people that perhaps it might be extended to U.S. citizens. Surely, the authorities can predict with a high degree of certainty which citizens might be tempted to break the law. Why "three strikes and you're out"? Why not one?
It is well known that most criminals re-offend, so one can say with near-certainty that criminals think about committing crimes. Twenty-five percent of all the prisoners in the world are incarcerated in U.S. jails - over 2 million and rising. Their cost is off-set in the privatized U.S. prison system by selling the goods they produce, and in a world of cheap labor, the contribution of these black "slaves" (by chance they are mostly black,) makes a modest but useful contribution to the U.S. trade deficit. Alas, the latter has mushroomed over the past four years.
Under the liberal President Clinton, whose morals were terrible, the U.S. had a trade surplus - but after cutting the taxes of the wealthiest citizens (because they know better than the poor how to spend money), and after the cost of spreading democracy to Iraq, the trade deficit has reached an all time record and is still growing. (Iraq alone accounts for $5 billion a month.)
Sadly, most of this debt is being bought up by China (not really a true democracy), with incalculable consequences should it decide to sell some of it. The U.S. also consumes 25 percent of the world's oil supplies - but fortunately Iraq is now on their side, and the democratic Saudis love the U.S., so that is OK.
With all of the above, it is comforting to know that President Bush has been elected for a second term. It would have been crazy to change the commander-in-chief midway through a war. It does not matter if he makes mistakes, as long as he never changes his mind. Awkward facts can always be changed to fit the desired goal as the President receives his vision of the future on his knees direct from on high. We can also sit back and be sure to enjoy some spectacular explosions and fireworks shortly with the assault on Fallujah viewed from the safety and comfort of our armchairs. It should make spectacular viewing on the TV with some great street fighting scenes.
If I were 20 today, single, and a U.S. citizen, I would be asking myself very seriously whether I wished to live my life in the U.S. over the next five or 10 years.
Michael Bennett-Levy is a resident of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the uncle of Tufts student Ilona Solomon, a senior majoring in history.
