Elections have consequences (like do what I say)

Re: "Comfort Women", I had the same reaction to the article. If a woman decides she wants to make a living having sex for cash, that's her choice. But having several friends who work on human trafficking and the sex-worker side of HIV issues, I know that rarely is it truly a free choice.

It is at times like this that I wonder how much democracy, or "liberty and freedom", as Mr. President puts it, is really worth when weighed against nothing else but just being able to be with your family, to watch your children grow up, and to grow old with your significant other.

While the President talks about liberty, freedom, and democracy interchangeably, they are not actually the same thing. Liberty and freedom are conceptually tied to liberalism, which is aimed at providing the individual the environment to govern their own life in an unencumbered manner. Democracy is a system of political organization for the government of a society. That democratic societies also tend to share similar characteristics of liberal societies does not mean they are the same thing.

Personally I never liked democracy very much. If the state is prohibiting me from doing something I want to do without much of a reason, I don't much care if it is because a single strongman leader doesn't want me to do it or because a bizarre coalition of lobbyists and activists organized enough votes (or campaign contributions).

The biggest conceptual shift in the current administration has been the move away from the promotion of liberalism - i.e. pushing societies to enact laws that liberate individuals from coercive force by the state or others - to a promotion of democracy. Far more disturbing has been the fact that we now seem to only promote illiberal democracy.

So, if you like forcing mothers to choose between becoming sex slaves or watching their kids starve vote for Rudy, Mitt, or Fred Thompson. If you don't you might consider giving Huckabee or Ron Paul a try.