10/29/2004 06:23:07 PM|||Nathan Moore|||

Why the election matters, and why those who say the occupant of the Oval Office doesn't matter are dead wrong. David Hogberg explains it well

The philosophy behind such sentiment is determinism -- the idea that men don't so much control events as they are controlled by them. The circumstances at a given point in history force a president to take certain actions. This theory tells us that since the war in Iraq and the War on Terror will still be going on when Kerry would take office, he would have little choice but to make a strenuous effort to ensure our national security. It makes me want to throw up my hands and say: "Have we learned nothing from history?"

If history controls men, then elections are a futile exercise. This is an obviously a fallacy. Hogberg goes on to cite the example of Jimmy Carter, one of the most brilliant foreign policy failures since James Buchanan.

Carter faced some crucial events that should have forced him to take serious foreign policy measures. Yet his response to the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan were anything but serious. With the exception of one failed rescue attempt, Carter publicly disavowed the use of force against Iran, and even went as far down the road of silliness as trying to get Libyan leader Mohamarr Qaddafi and then former Attorney General Ramsey Clark to intervene.

And this line is as appropriate for John Kerry as it was for Jimmy Carter

Carter was an unserious man facing serious threats.

The exasperated question rings throughout - have we learned nothing from history?

|||109909248732939738|||Explained