Yes, Virginia, there is a Klaus and a superb candidate for president

By Craig Cantoni | October 15, 2008

CantoniHo-ho-ho! I’m in a jolly mood today, because I finally found someone who is qualified to be president. There is hope for liberty.

I heard him speak last night to an enthralled audience. 

He understands tyranny because he lived under it for three-fourths of his life. He has a proven record of reforming government and achieving economic prosperity and liberty. He is an economist by trade and thus has the most important qualification for the presidency in these troubled economic times. He has implemented a flat tax and realizes the nefarious nature of the regulatory state and central planning. He is against political correctness, racial favoritism and welfare. He has written a book about the hysteria and junk science behind the global warming movement, a movement that he sees as a threat to liberty.

In addition, he is mild-mannered, soft-spoken, and unassuming, with a resemblance to Santa Claus, but without the white beard and red suit. Most important, as a believer in both civil liberties and economic freedom, he rates about a “9” on the 10-point liberty scale.

No, I’m not speaking of Barack Obama, the smart Marxist and wannabe Hugo Chavez. Nor am I speaking about John McCain, the dimwitted progressive/militarist and wannabe Teddy Roosevelt. Both of these candidates rank about a “5” on the liberty scale.

I’m speaking of Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic. He doesn’t want to be anyone but his authentic self.

It speaks volumes about the deplorable condition of America’s two parties that a nation of 300 million people produces Tweedledee and Tweedledum as candidates, while a nation of 10 million people produces Vaclav Klaus.

Why is this?

The answer is revolution.

It takes a revolution to produce a leader like Klaus. In the case of his country, it took a velvet revolution to break up the status quo of Eastern Bloc communism and begin anew. In the case of the United States, there has been no revolution to end decades of ever-growing government dependency, nannyism, socialism, bureaucracy, centralization, rent-seeking, militarism, fiscal folly, and two-party cronyism. 

Although they pretend otherwise, Obama and McCain are status quo candidates. They will perpetuate the long, slow decline of the United States, encouraged by the establishment media, rent-seeking corporations, mooching special interests, and the 60 percent of voters who are dependent on the government for all or part of their income.

Incidentally, Klaus actually used the term “rent-seeking” in his remarks last night. Have Obama and McCain ever used it? Do they even know what it means?

Ironically, while Klaus was speaking, the two vice presidential candidates were debating at Washington University in St. Louis. He makes the two look about as wise as high school students. On second thought, that’s an insult to high school students.
      
Yes, Virginia, there is a Klaus. Unfortunately, he heads the Czech Republic and not the United States.