By Chris Basten

  Since the beginning of the 2004 Presidential primaries, I've encountered a question that keeps nagging at me: Why do we need a President? Having a President reside over the private affairs of individuals is unnecessary and has proven to be a misguided experiment in leadership. The best thing Presidents have accomplished throughout our nation's history is having their terms expire. Why would I want to expend energy or money trying to promote the agendas of one man over another? Why should I vote for one man to tell me what to do and how much of my hard-earned money I must give up for the apparent good of others? Why would I eliminate my own freedom so that large portions of my earnings can be lusted over by a few strangers who lie and tell me that they will spend it more wisely than the bureaucrats who guided our country before them? This is the oldest trick in the book.

Money that has not been earned by politicians does not belong to a government that I don't support-and yet I am forced to hand it over whether I want to or not. If I vote for a stranger who appears less insidious than the other clowns he is running against, I am virtually saying that I support a system that takes away my earnings and freedom, regardless of who is running it. Hence, the foolishness of voting. The power and money entrusted to a President is not the makings of a free and virtuous nation. I do not work hard to have one-third to one-half of my Federal Reserve notes shoveled into foreign policing programs, free room-and-board for criminals and petty drug possessors, and government-run schools that don't work.

One man has been given access to trillions and trillions of dollars that don't belong to him so that he can do what he thinks is best (mostly for his own ego). Back in the days, kings did not have the kind of power that a President of the United States currently has. Should this not incite us to do away with a system of government that puts a man on a modern-day throne? Should we not be incensed that Presidents cannot resist the urge to play G.I Joe in all areas of the world with all of their fancy new weapons and dispense with unfathomable amounts of money in the process? How can anyone with a conscience look at history and see anything charitable out of having our present-day kings continue to rape humanity and call it "good?"

The supremacy that is bestowed to a President has furthered socialism in covert and not-so-covert ways. With trillions of dollars at one's disposal (none of which is his), a President cannot resist the temptation to spend this money on whatever idea strikes his fancy. Laws must be adopted because the President doesn't like certain lifestyles. Everyone must contribute whether they agree with him or not. All businesses must be heavily regulated because of the few who are corrupt and irresponsible. Never mind how expensive and debilitating this practice is and how it kills the free-market that regulation is supposed to protect. We must continue to plunge billions of dollars into a black hole called social security that is run poorly and has no backing other than a corrupt government's word. Everyone must receive health care because this is the compassionate thing to do even though research and history prove otherwise. Moreover, we are led to believe that we are dangerous to ourselves and the President will protect us from every threat known to mankind. If he has to use guns or police brutality to beat his principles into us, then so be it. A President, and the government under him, is here for our own good because we can't make our own choices or take care of ourselves. This is ultimately what your vote communicates.

Voting for a President is not a vote for freedom and democracy. Voting for a President just continues the downward spiral of crumbling economic structures that the government instills in society. Voting for a President maintains the programs that stifle innovation and financial independence-social security, universal healthcare, a useless defense program, federal regulations, laws that corrupt society further instead of protect it, media control, endless cycles of war and poverty, a hapless public school system, and last but not least, secrecy. The government goes to great lengths to shroud itself in secrecy so that you do not find out how crooked the system really is. In essence, we are basically voting to further a cycle of spending that protects the government from us finding out how much of our money it spends. The government is the largest sheltered racketeering front this side of the Mafia. Of course, the Mafia provided a need when alcohol was prohibited by federal forces. The government does not know how to do anything but take away. It gives nothing in return for all we are forced to sacrifice. It wastes effort on intrusive laws and abandons the documents that are supposed to guide it in protecting our individual rights. This is all done with the President's signature of approval.

If I cared to vote, I would vote to remove the power that is given to the President. He is given the authority that monarchies only dare to dream about. A free and prosperous nation does not need a king to tell us how to buy and sell, who we can and cannot marry, who gets tax breaks and who does not, how businesses must be run, how we must build our homes, or how we must get approval from his royal magistrates to do everything. We do not need a system run by a President to "protect" us from terrorism (which, by the way, would not exist if it wasn't for Presidential foreign policies), to declare war on already decrepit nations who we have willingly stocked with military supplies, or to run our hospitals and schools. We do not need a President to handle our affairs and to tell us how to live our lives. We don't need his subsidies, his reforms, his offshore tariffs to save our heavily-regulated enterprises, or his numerous staff members to waste our precious time and resources.

What America needs is not another expensive voting campaign but liberty from government entirely. A President has an insatiable desire to win an election-that is all. Once he has been fortunate enough to win, he will spend whatever amount of taxpayers' money his heart desires with no more than a photo-op and a signature on a dotted-line. It's not his money. It's not his life. Why should he really care until it comes time again for you to vote his interfering ways back into your life for another term? The frightening answer is that there is nothing to hold him accountable. Keep this in mind during this year's campaign. When it comes time to vote, ask not who you should vote for, but why you would want to vote for a man you don't know personally in the first place so that he can control your existence for the next four years. It's your life. Why waste it on one man who has the means to take more and more of your life away?