Unless you live under a rock (and probably even if you do), you’ve noticed the death of George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President of the United States, on November 30, at age 94.

You’ve probably also suffered through multiple personal remembrances of the man and his presidency — some positive, some negative, some mixed. Mine, which you may read below if you’re not already worn out on the topic, is of the latter variety.

I am grateful for Bush and for his presidency for two major and positive changes in my life for which he deserves at least partial credit (or, if you prefer, bears at least partial responsibility).

First, Bush made it inevitable that I would leave the armed forces rather than serving 20 years and retiring. He did so by kicking off a post-Cold-War round of cuts in military spending that continued into the Clinton era.

Those cuts, in addition to being a darn fine idea that I wish the current administration would emulate, led to a situation in which, instead of signing a new enlistment contract with the Marine Corps reserve, I received several six-month “extensions.” When I got tired of piles of new paperwork every six months, I took my honorable discharge (in 1995) and moved on to new and different pursuits. I did and do love the Marine Corps.  I suspect I love it more than I would have loved it if I’d remained in it into his son’s presidency. So thank you, President Bush.

Secondly, Bush’s presidency caused me to reconsider my (fairly short as such things go — I was young and still malleable) commitment to “conservatism” and to the Republican Party. It’s entirely possible that, had he not reneged on his “read my lips — no new taxes” pledge, I would have voted for him in 1992 and have remained a Republican voter to this day.

I told myself that if Bush kept his word on taxes, I’d support him for re-election; if he didn’t, I wouldn’t. He didn’t, and I didn’t … but I wasn’t going to vote for Bill Clinton, either. I carried ballot access petitions for, and voted for, Ross Perot in 1992. Then I conducted an agonizing reappraisal of my convictions and went looking for a movement and a party to match them. I became an ideological libertarian circa 1993 and a Libertarian Party member in 1996. So thank you again, President Bush.

American politics has changed since Bush’s presidency, and mostly not for the better. It seems reasonable to lay at least partial responsibility for some very bad things — in particular, the extension of his feud with Saddam Hussein into a series of foreign policy fiascoes that plague us to this day — at his feet. There were plenty of ugly things about the man and about his presidency, and I have no problem with those who ignore the old admonition to speak not ill of the dead.

But I’m still grateful to the president of my early adulthood for shaping my life in ways he almost certainly didn’t intend.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In late November, Democratic members of the US House of Representatives met to begin choosing their leadership for the 116th Congress, which convenes on January 3.

The party’s endorsed candidate — although not a shoo-in — for Speaker of the House is former House Speaker (until her party lost the chamber in 2010) and current Minority Leader (since then), 78-year-old Nancy Pelosi of California, in Congress since 1987.

The incoming Majority Leader is  former Majority Leader (until his party lost the chamber in 2010) and current Minority Whip (since then), Maryland’s 79-year-old Steny Hoyer, in Congress since 1981.

The incoming Minority Whip is former Minority Whip (until his party lost the chamber in 2010) and current Assistant Minority Leader (since then), 78-year-old South Carolinian Jim Clyburn, in Congress since 1993.

Notice a trend? House Democrats are raiding the Smithsonian’s dinosaur exhibits to fill their leadership positions. They’re tapping some younger faces for a few less powerful leadership positions, but the old guard — the politicians who lost Congress in 2010 — are simply stepping back into power as if the last eight years never happened.

But those eight years DID happen, and to the extent that Democratic gains in the House can be ascribed to a “blue wave” in last month’s midterms, said “wave” was as much a response to the abject failure of the Democratic Party’s leadership during those eight years as a reaction to Republican misrule and the ascent of Donald Trump.

These are the same party leaders who relentlessly pushed Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign on a party rank and file who had begun taking a serious look to the left, arguably handing the White House to Trump two years ago.

These are the same party leaders who supported “middle of the road” establishment candidates in midterm primaries across the country versus a new crop of “democratic socialist,” or at least “progressive,” insurgents who did surprisingly well given that they had to fight their way past their own party’s establishment before confronting their  Republican opponents.

As a partisan Libertarian, I’m not one to give ideological or policy advice to Democrats of either party faction. They believe what they believe, however wrong-headed those beliefs may be.

As an interested onlooker, however, I have to offer a strategic “is the party establishment nuts?” to this.

Given an opportunity — even arguably a mandate from their voters — to change things up, the party establishment is doing the same old thing again while apparently anticipating different results.

That approach doesn’t bode well for Democrats’ 2020 prospects in Congress or for the White House. It might, however, bode well for change and for freedom.

America’s two largest political parties are tearing themselves apart in different ways — the Republicans by abandoning any pretense of actually believing their own “smaller government” guff, the Democrats by refusing to drag themselves forward in time out of the Reagan era.

Perhaps voters will look to the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, or the Reform Party for the changes the dinosaur parties keep promising to give them and then failing to deliver.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On October 29, US president Donald Trump took to Twitter, warning that a migrant “caravan” approaching the US-Mexico border was “an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” On November 18, as the caravan reached Tijuana — and the border — he reiterated the “invasion” claim: “[T]he U.S. is ill-prepared for this invasion, and will not stand for it.”

As a popular conservative radio host frequently reminds us, “words mean things.”

It’s perverse to characterize a migrant “caravan” — a group of civilian non-combatants, many of them women and children, moving from one place to another in search of safety, freedom and livelihood — as an “invasion.” Is the morning commute of millions of workers into every major American city an “invasion?” More than 1 in 10 Americans move each year —  often across city, county, even state “borders.” Are they “invaders?”

An invasion is a violent military operation. Moving from Tegucigalpa to Topeka to find a job and rent an apartment isn’t anything like that.

But Trump used the word, and even promised a military response. So, for the sake of argument, let’s take him seriously. There’s a war on at the border, at least in his fevered imagination.

The United States is signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, under which “[e]ach State Party undertakes not to use riot control agents as a method of warfare.”

If the confrontation at the San Ysidro border crossing is indeed combat to defeat “invaders,” then the use of “tear gas” (CS — a chemical weapon banned under the Convention) on the “caravan” members on November 26 was a war crime.

The victims were on the Mexican side of the border. Mexico is a party to the Rome Statute, which means that crimes committed on its soil — regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators — come under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

It’s unlikely that the Court can bring the perpetrators (which would include the entire chain of command which authorized the use of CS, up to and including President Trump) to trial and impose due punishment, as the US declines to recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction.

What the Court CAN do is investigate the incident and, if it determines that a war crime was committed in a territory under its jurisdiction, issue Interpol “Red Notices” requiring states which DO recognize its jurisdiction to apprehend the perpetrators and hand them over for trial if the opportunity to do so presents itself.

The practical effect of such an action would be that neither President Trump nor any of the other responsible individuals would be able to travel outside the US without fear of arrest. Ever.

This should be a “teachable moment.” Words do indeed mean things, and a when a president uses a word mendaciously and for political advantage, the obligations and consequences attached to that usage should follow.

I’m emailing this column to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court — [email protected]. I hope others will similarly act to call the crime in question to the Court’s attention.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “El uso de gas lacrimogeno en la frontera fue un ‘crimen de guerra,'” by Thomas L. Knapp, La Tribuna Hispana USA, 11/28/18
• “Invasion correct word,” by Rick Margin, Wilmington, North Carolina Star-News, 12/05/18