The fact is, the US invests massive amounts of money into its military because there is a widespread view (which very well may be true) that our standard of living is made possible by the military. One has to wonder though… are we overspending?

From: Military Education

On the cause side we have Wall Street:

“GE filed 57k-page tax return; paid no taxes on $14b in profits…

On the effect side we have Occupy:

“Protestors snarl Los Angeles freeway traffic…”

Anyone who suggests that Wall St. isn’t the right target is missing the larger point. People on both the left and the right are starting to wake up to a new reality where big corporations are in bed with the Federal government and both are riding on the backs of the average man and woman. When enough of those average men and women get fed up with this corruption, you get protests and potential change.

Should the real targets of the Occupy Wall Street protests be the fat cats in our institutions of Higher Education?

The fact is that it’s nearly impossible to untangle the causes of the economic mess we’re in. Whether the cause is government (according to the libertarians) or the financial industry (according to the progressives) or an economically ungrounded system of higher education and student loans (according to all of us with a degree, no job and big student debt), there’s a pretty clear message… everyday people are getting tired of getting jerked around.

From: Best Colleges

With revolutions all across the Arab world, riots spreading through Europe, and the continued persistence of the economic downturn, it seems like everyone’s coming to the consensus that perhaps the situation has become so unthinkably bad that previously unthinkable solutions might be necessary.  Government solutions to catastrophic economic collapse have rarely been neat or pretty, but at least in the past they tried to do something bold and mostly succeeded — as opposed to our modern Congress who apparently can’t even agree on the fact that they are responsible enough to spend any money.

So how about we propose a tiny, modest, infinitesimal alteration: just overthrow the whole f’n thing and start from scratch.  After all, it’s the young, well educated millennials that are getting the hardest shaft from the downturn, and it’s the young, educated and unemployed who start revolutions.  There’s not much else that will kick off a revolution faster than grinding poverty and an excess of free time, especially when you add in upward of $100,000 in student loan debt, piled on in pursuit of what ended up being an empty promise given by baby boomers who have their healthcare paid for by the government, but pale with horror when their children demand the same.  So whether we completely re-write the Constitution (which we can totally do by the way), or violently storm the capital, here are 10 ways in which overthrowing the government would help get the economy back on its feet.

(Disclaimer: Many of the options on this list are severe, morally repugnant and hilariously infeasible.  They are presented only as a meditation on how extreme current worldwide economic and political conditions have become.)

Reduce Politically Sensitive Government Spending

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Take a look at this beauty.  That’s the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, also known as the most deadly, advanced airplane in existence today.  Along with the F-22, this stealth joint strike fighter will absolutely dominate the skies for the next several decades.  To give you an idea of just how good these planes are, when an F-18 pilot managed to “shoot down” an F-22 in a practice battle, everyone promptly lost their shit.  And that is the only recorded “kill” of these next generation fighters. Ever. The closest competition is an unproven Chinese prototype, which no one is sure even works.  Also they have one, while the US already has hundreds, plans for hundreds more, and the highly advanced infrastructure necessary to pump out even more should the need arise.  Oh also for the cost of the development of the F-35 alone, we could have bought Australia.

As badass as these weapons are, ask yourself briefly: Who the hell are they going to fight?  The US has been involved in two major conflicts ever since the F-22 became operational, and the F-22s have proven themselves capable by…uh…participating in a bunch of training exercises and being repeatedly grounded by mechanical defects.  Even then, canceling the production was a gigantic political fight, and the fact that former Defense Secretary Gates actually succeeded was viewed as “surprising”.  This was due to the fact that the program pumped trillions of dollars into the local economies of politicians who, unsurprisingly, were quite reluctant to see that funding disappear.

As it turns out, military spending (despite most people’s perceptions of the impact of WWII) is actually an incredibly inefficient use of government funds.  According to most models, military spending actually becomes a net drain on the economy, especially when sustained for several years.  Now imagine that the current budget and its long list of politically-motivated decisions were scrapped, and an impartial body was able to re-write the budget map.  The hundreds of billions that go to these badass boondoggles could be put into, oh I don’t know, unemployment insurance, social security, health care, scholarships, or any one of hundreds of programs that actually help out those who need it most and aren’t a net drain on GDP, instead of programs that build useless nightmare machines.

Reconfigure Expensive Budgetary Liabilities

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Despite the perception that most government spending is wasted on unnecessary, politically-motivated earmarks like volcano research and shrimp treadmills, the biggest budgetary problems facing the government, especially state governments, are the promises they made to the previous generation in the form of pensions, job security and generally everything nice about government jobs that people used to talk about.  The problem is, it’s often encoded in law that workers are entitled to certain benefits, which turns every budget-balancing action into a gigantic battle between unions, businesses, governments and the public at large.

This inhibits governments from hiring critically needed workers both because they can’t promise the same benefits and because they can’t offer wages competitive with the private sector.  And these battles ripple out through the economy, most importantly making it next to impossible to responsibly reform education.  I’m not assigning blame to either the unions or the deficit hawks arrayed against them, just saying that what could be a simple problem solved productively turns into a political miasma resulting in imperfect and damaging half-baked solutions.

But if we overthrew the government, all of these agreements could be re-negotiated (since the former United States would no longer exist).  The result would be painful for both sides, but the alternative of “doing nothing except arguing about it in increasingly shrill tones because everyone is too entrenched” is even worse.

Institute Effective, Responsible Regulation

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While there are plenty of fingers to point as to who caused the current financial apocalypse, there’s a clear consensus among many economists that it was seriously exacerbated by ineffective regulation.  Specifically, several depression-era controls were slowly and systematically dismantled through administrations Republican and Democrat alike.  Why were these important and proven safeguards removed?  Well, because of the disturbingly high number of former Goldman Sachs employees in the government telling people they were no longer necessary.  In a revelation economists have deemed “shocking only to the half-stoned and mostly inebriated”, too much private business say in their own regulation led to useless and ineffective regulation.  Even the recent Dodd-Frank reform, supposedly enacted to prevent another financial crisis like the one of the past few years, is generally viewed as being so ineffective even Chris Dodd says he doubts his own bill will prevent another crisis.  And this isn’t just idle worrying about the next theoretical crisis; studies show that effective regulation (i.e. not too burdensome, but not too loose) is critical to economic growth overall.

But imagine that everyone from Goldman Sachs who suggested regulation repeals were lined up and sho– I mean politely asked to leave the room while responsible adults and experts rebuilt an effective regulatory regime.  This wouldn’t be possible under the current regime thanks to Goldman Sachs’ vampire squid hold on America.  But should a revolutionary government (led by the incredibly dashing and charismatic Internet writer who sparked it) take over, regulation could responsibly put in place without special-interest interference.  In a saner and less autocratic scenario, a Constitutional Convention could rewrite the Constitution to include a clause where all financial regulatory reform would be proposed by an outside body of experts and subject to an up-or-down only vote in Congress.  This body would be composed of appointees who would be required to have no entanglements with the financial industry.

Eliminate Harmful Market Distortions

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“If it were economically viable, private companies would already be investing in it and government subsidies wouldn’t be necessary” is the constant refrain used to criticize government subsidies for alternative energy.  As it turns out, pretty much… well… every other form of energy ever receives some pretty healthy subsidies from the government.  In fact, the government spends quite a bit in various sectors such as energy and agriculture in the name of making the end product cheaper for the average consumer and protecting important domestic jobs.  In reality, oil and agricultural subsidies are harmful for pretty much everyone from producer to employees to the final consumer.

Unfortunately, despite repeated efforts to repeal these subsidies based on their general awfulness, ineffectiveness and general economic harm, the lobbying groups behind all these industries take their billions in subsidies and promptly spend that money protecting their subsidies and scaring lawmakers with bogus economics that eliminating the subsidies would spell economic doom.  Much like the previous scenario with regulation, hitting the reset button on the government would (at least briefly) weaken lobbyist control on politics and allow the repeal of these subsidies and other market distortions that are generally loathed by experts.

Reform Education and Fuel Long-Term Growth

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In the current fevered debate as to the extent to which the government should interfere to help correct the economy, it is important to remember that all of the proposed fixes are meant to be short-term.  No economist seriously thinks the government should make a business of bailing out the economy every year.  But this raises the question of how you fundamentally generate stable, long-term economic growth.  And in just about every scenario imaginable the answer is always the same: education is the key to permanent growth.  It’s a truth so fundamental, economists sometimes forget to remind everyone that no fiscal trickery can substitute for a well-educated populous.

And therein lies the problem, because even taking a charitable view, from Kindergarten to a Ph.D., the American education system has some serious problems that need addressing.  Primary education institutions are often poorly funded, under-performing teachers are rarely replaced, and systemic racial and economic ills persist.  Higher education is prohibitively expensive, and students often spend years and tens of thousands of dollars for a degree that will not even begin to pay off their massive student debt.  And again, the problems are (at least partly) structural and inextricably political.  The debate on how to fix American education (or whether it is really broken at all) is long and exhaustive, but addressing the numerous long-standing and entrenched problems surrounding it could only be helped by a fresh start.

Create Less Doubt About the Fiscal Responsibility of Politicians

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As much as it often seems like the value of a dollar is something hard-coded into the economy, the US dollar is a fiat currency.  This means that, to greatly simplify, its value is pegged primarily to the credit worthiness of the United States.  Recently one of the largest credit rating agencies, S&P, downgraded US debt rating for the first time in history, citing, in part, the political instability of the current congress.  Not to mention that the instability surrounding the recent debt ceiling debate will probably cost the United States billions.  Make no mistake, when trillions of outstanding debt hangs in the balance, the trustworthiness of the United States is its greatest currency.

Now imagine that you have a credit card with around a $15 trillion limit, of which you’ve used $14.5 trillion, you’ve lost your job, and you have a couple hundred billion more in outstanding payments.  It may be a radical move, but in this situation it might make sense to throw in the towel and declare bankruptcy, or in America’s case, renegotiate its debt obligations.  To be perfectly clear: This is an insanely extreme measure and would only be rational to implement if the US credit rating continued to drop dramatically and the world financial system was in complete worse-than-the-depression freefall.  But if things (dear god) got any worse, complete overthrow of the government and a bottom-up reform of the financial system and fiscal controls would suddenly move from the realm of “conspiracy theorist chattering in his basement” to “well maybe us normal people should think about this.”  This is how insane the world has become.

Remove the Politics from Bailouts and Stimulus

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Not even the most die-hard Keynesian likes bailouts or stimulus plans.  When a government has to resort to these methods, it means something has gone seriously wrong.  On top of that, bailouts and economic stimuli create a series of moral hazards and perverse incentives, and we know politicians are just the first people we want handling issues that require a dispassionate, even hand.  Hell “Moral Hazard” and “Perverse Incentive” sound like descriptions of Congress on a particularly scrupulous day.

Long economics lecture short: Bailing out companies that have behaved irresponsibly creates incentive for them and their peers to behave irresponsibly in the future, as they suffered few to no negative consequences.  But not bailing them out can mean the economy will lose hundreds of billions of dollars it might never get back. (Lehman Brothers, a firm you never heard about before 2008, was worth around $600 billion.  That’s roughly the annual defense budget of the US.)  Economic stimulus is a recipe for crony politics, earmarks, and billions of dollars spent on things that will have no effect of the short-term health of the economy.  Good luck wrestling these powerful and lucrative tools from the hands of Congress without a total overhaul.

Ideally speaking, these tools would be automated so that no last-minute manipulation would occur.  A perfect example is unemployment insurance, which serves as a natural stimulus when times are tough, then automatically reduces its cost once things improve.  Bailouts could be on the table only when the country is in the midst of a recession, and then would be tied to Constitutionally-mandated reforms of the company that will slowly and responsibly dismantle it — as the company has proven that it cannot be managed dependably enough to justify its size and concomitant threat to the larger economy as a whole.  But unless these measures are taken out of the hands of day-to-day politics, the incentive is too great for politicians to grab the reins and either stimulate and save irresponsibly, or worse, not intervene at all as wealth evaporates by the trillions.

Reconfigure Obligations Abroad

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The US has spent the better part of the past two hundred years getting its hands dirty in just about every international mess imaginable.  Not even mentioning the couple trillion-dollar price tag of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, these interventions have been ridiculously expensive (the recent Libyan intervention cost $600 million — for just the first week).

To a certain extent, these are necessary and justified interventions in the interest of fostering global security and stability.  But as the US sees its larger role and prestige decline, and more and more world powers emerge, perhaps its time to rethink this big brother mindset.  The problem is, trust is currency both economically and in international politics.  The US cannot just abandon its international obligations because it becomes inconvenient, without losing all credibility and standing abroad.  But overthrow the current system, and old obligations and friendships will suddenly become open to reconsideration and renegotiation.  It’s not a morally appealing option (pretty much nothing on this list is), but as a last-ditch option to divert more badly-needed funds back to America, letting the rest of the world shoulder more of the burden for their own local and regional security and stability becomes a more attractive option by the day.

Create Some Serious Old-School Stimulus

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There is a healthy, long-running debate among economists as to what sort of stimulus programs, if any, are effective and to what extent they are effective.  If you’re looking for an afternoon of lively, spirited economic theory, simply type the words “Keynesian + Stimulus + Effective” into Google and prepare to lose any remaining hope.  The truth for millions of unemployed and underemployed workers is that some sort of bold solution was needed about 18 months ago.  After all, the common wisdom is that World War II pulled the world economy out of the gutter, perhaps something of that scale is needed to jar the current economy out of its lethargy.

Obviously a devastating world war is not the ideal solution, but a government program that employs millions at a decent wage, and then pays for their college education after a term of service might just do the trick.  Now think about getting a program like that through the current congress or any congress going back 30 years and enjoy a good laugh.  Bold solutions have become impossible in the “Got Mine, Fuck You” era that’s become horrified that a single person will receive some undeserved compensation, despite any possible benefits.  A government overthrow by the over-educated, unemployed, and disaffected millennials; the hard working middle class that has seen virtually no real wage growth for decades; and all those who are frustrated by a government that seems intent on preserving the status quo instead of pursuing daring and intrepid goals just might be what is needed to snap both the government and the world economy out of its current paralysis.

Because Why the Hell Not?

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Maybe the worst of the Doomsayers are right.  Maybe capitalism is fatally flawed and has reached the end of its usefulness.  Maybe it just needs a free-market libertarian shot in the arm.  Maybe Congress is fundamentally broken and needs a good retooling.  The arguments that something radical needs to be done to address the unprecedented level of this recession and the subsequent inability of Congress to fully address the issues are growing increasingly numerous.  On the other side, arguments for continuing as we have are conspicuously absent and have a somewhat hollow ring and tainted luster to them.

A violent overthrow or even a period of cantankerous civil unrest will almost certainly create more problems than they solve.  Creating a government from scratch is several degrees of magnitude more difficult than tearing one down, but in the face of trillions of dollars in debt, record unemployment, a stagnating recovery, instability in worldwide markets, and a government that seems practically immobile… you know, why the hell not?  Do you have a better answer?  Please?

17. Republic of Molossia

Molossia is probably one of the most well known Micronations, with just the right blend of tongue-in-cheek humor and seriousness be wonderful and awesome. Molossia is based on two properties in Nevada and Pennsylvania, stretching over 58,000 acres owned by President Kevin Baugh (dictatorial). He issues their own money, they recognise other micronations, and if you give him enough warning, he’ll even give you a tour in full uniform. Molossia has its own alphabet, flag, and has been at war with East Germany since 1983, despite only being founded in 1999. Plus, they just added their own words to the Albanian national anthem. A little bonkers, and a lot of fun, how could you dislike the Republic of Molossia?

16. The Kingdom of Lovely

In 2005, the BBC ran a six-part documentary titled How to Start Your Own Country in which comedian Danny Wallace attempted to do exactly that — the Kingdom of Lovely is what resulted. He decided his flat would be appropriate, and gave Tony Blair a declaration of Independence, claiming it as a micronation. Partly internet based, Lovely now has more than 55,000 citizens scattered around the world, but Wallace’s attempt to gain recognition from the United Nations was harmed by him lacking any territories.

15. The Duchy of Bohemia

Whether the Duchy of Bohemia is actually a micronation or not is up for debate. Amongst the serious Micronationers, it’s generally frowned upon as they haven’t been doing anything really political, instead just selling off titles as a way to make a quick buck — rather than attempting to set themselves up as a legitimate mini-country. The reason I’ve included them is because their backstory is wonderful — they believe themselves to be the government in exile of Bohemia, which was absorbed into other Eastern European countries decades ago. They believe themselves to be descended of the Bohemian royal line, which is kinda badass.

14. Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands

In 2004, the Australian govenrment refused to acknowledge gay marriages, so as a move of symbolic protest a huge cluster of islands of the Northeast Coast of Queensland were declared the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands, a Euro spending constitutional monarchy under the rule of King Gautier I. With a national anthem by Gloria Gaynor, anyone who was gay or lesbian was immediately granted citizenship — though the only economic activity on the islands was tourism, fishing, and selling stamps. Yes, it’s silly, and no it’s not meant to be taken seriously, but it was an interesting protest, and all done in fun.

13. The Dominion of Melchizedek

The so-called Dominion of Melchizedek presents the seedier side of micronations, a group of people involved in an immense swathe of financial fraud that brought the world powers down against them. Not internationally recognised, it was founded by a father and son con-artist team, who sold fake banking licenses. They facilitated global banking fraud, and were once called “one of the most diabolical international scams ever devised in recent years.” The leaders claim it’s an “ecclesiastical sovereignty,” like the Vatican City, but that’s more or less BS. They give banking licenses to illegitimate entities, who then rip off everyone else. Poor immigrants were also duped into buying citizenship papers they couldn’t afford, only to find they were useless. Nice people, all around.

12. The Aerican Empire

Their flag has a happy face on it. Do you really need any more indication that these people are amazing? They also take the micronation concept to absurdest ends, claiming diverse areas of land like a square kilometer of Australia, a house-sized area in Montreal, Canada, a colony on Mars, the northern hemisphere of Pluto, and an imaginary planet. For the first 10 years of existence, it didn’t even claim any land, but still managed to declare war on other micronations. They also have one of the most wonderful mottos around “The Empire exists to facilitate the evolution of a society wherein the Empire itself is no longer necessary.” It’s pretty much a state set up by a bunch of HGTTG nerds, which is amazing in and of itself.

11. Nova Roma

Take you standard SCA style reenactment geeks, have the obsess about Rome instead of the Middle Ages, and turn the wackiness up to 11, and you have the basics of Nova Roma. Founded in 1989 in order to “the restoration of classical Roman religion, culture, and virtues,” they’re a fully recognized non-profit with an educational and religious mission. They practice the Roman religion, do the festivities, wear the clothes, reenact battles — but I’m assuming skip the horrible torture, ethnic cleansing, and pedophilia. Well, I hope. The New Romans don’t really consider themselves a Micronation, but the rest of the Micronation community does, and they have made utterings about attempting to become a sovereign nation following in Roman traditions.

10. Conch Republic

The Conch Republic deserves to be on this list if only for having the funniest motto I’ve ever seen on a Micronation: “We Seceded Where Others Failed.” Well played, Conchers, well played. The Republic is completely tongue-and-cheek, and exists only to help drive tourism to the Florida Keys, but its founding was caused by real frustrations. When the US Border Patrol set up a checkpoint between Key West and the mainland, it frustrated a number of residents. Why were they being treated like foreign nationals entering the USA when they were citizens? So they decided they should make their own country. Yeah, they were removing the Michael, but were doing so with a point.

9. The Other World Kingdom

Finding pictures of the OWK that I could put on a marginally SFW website was tricky, because OWK exists only for kink. It’s a Femdom Micronation, one where men and women who like it when women have complete sexual and physical power over men get together. Fiercely matriarchal, male visitors are used as furniture, beaten, and generally tortured in a manner that some BDSM lovers are intimately familiar with. While apparently no actual sex occurs in this Czech manor (yeah, right), their claims as a Micronation allow them to get away with things that otherwise might be illegal — like detaining people against their will (kinda?) and physical abuse. Hey, whatever rubs your Buddha.

8. The failed Libertarian states

This entry isn’t just one nation, but instead is devoted to the number of attempted Libertarian micronations that have fallen apart for one reason or another. Hey, whenever your entire population thinks they’re John Galt, it’s hard to find someone to fix the sewage pump. There was Minerva on a small reef island near Fiji, which fell when Tonga invaded and took it over. There was New Utopia, founded by Howard Turney, which may or may not be an immense scam, depending on who you talk to. Then the Principality of Freedonia attempted to lease land in Somaliland, but public dissatisfaction led to rioting and the death of a Somali national, so the American students who founded it scarpered. There’s the more recent Seasteading Institute, which is attempting to build an ocean based new nation. I’m sure one day, one of them will succeed.

7. The Empire of Atlantium

Unlike many of the tongue in cheek attempts at micronationhood, the Empire of Atlantium went at it with a fierce devotion to the nation-state experiment, and wanted to found an extremely liberal, secular humanist utopia. Formed in Sydney in 1981, the nation has only 0.29 square miles to its name, but as primarily non-territorial state, they’re cool with that. I guess you could say it’s more a state of mind (oh god, why did I make that pun?) The man behind Atlantium is fiercely disliked by other Micronations, essentially for being an enormous flaming douchenozzle, but at least he’s trying.

6. Grand Duchy of Westarctica

For some reason, up until 2001 there was a huge wedge of Antarctica not claimed by any existing nation. All of the land south of 60° S and between 90° W and 150° W. was between the claims of Chile and New Zealand, and no one wanted it. So Travis McHenry claimed the so called Marie Byrd Land, and christened it the Grand Duchy of Westarctica. Of all the entries on this list, Westartica actually makes more sense than most. There was a huge swathe of land that nobody wanted, so why couldn’t they just claim it? It was completely unclaimed, so they grabbed it. I kinda hope they actually get some recognition, at least one of these guys deserves a win.

5. The Kingdom of EnenKio

Possibly the most widely known and condemned of the scummy, scamming micronations, the Kingdom of EnenKio claimed Wake Atoll of the Marshall Islands as their home base. These three little islands make up around 6.5 square kilometers of land, and after setting up this micronation in 1994, the founders immediately started setting up scam passports and diplomatic papers, which they sold to various unsavory types, despite them not actually having any weight in any nation on the planet. Both the United States and the Marshall Islands have released official communications condemning the actions of the EnenKions.

4. The Hutt River Province Principality

One of the longer running micronations, the Hutt River Province was founded in Australia in 1970. Based in the middle of fucking nowhere, around 500km north of Perth, this 18,000 hectare of farmland declared their secession after what they deemed to be overly draconian wheat production quotas. Unlike most other attempts on this list, the Hutt River Provinces almost succeeded. There’s an old Commonwealth law allowing for succession, and the Queen’s representative in Australia couldn’t be bothered fighting the five families who started the new country, so they just let them be. They don’t pay taxes, and mostly just keep to themselves, selling stamps and coins to make some extra cash on the side.

3. The Independent Long Island

Wait a second, someone actually wants Long Island? Huh, who would have thought? The ILI is an interesting case, because while they started by claiming the entire island as their own in 2007, on the grounds that it never changed hands to the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Or something like that. They could just be ornery, I’m not really sure. But in the scant handful of years that followed, it was entertaining as all hell to watch their dreams crumble into dust. Unlike some of the leaders on this list who kept their delusions going for years, the ILI first wanted their own country, then were happy being a separate state, and now have completely abandoned political aspirations and is now a “cultural project.”

2. Freetown Christiania

Within the Danish capital of Copenhagen sits a small, self-declared autonomous region known as Freetown Christiania. Founded in 1971 by, well, hippies, it’s run by, well, hippies. A bunch of squatters took over a former military barracks, and set up the mother of all communes. Think street music, lots of pot, vegetarian food, no violence, and no hard drugs. Christiana was most well known up until 2004 for its completely open marijuana sales. Anybody (including tourists) could just rock up to a stall and buy some hash. Unfortunately, 2004 saw the Danish government crack down on this, and the freeholding has been in a legal wreck ever since, with their very existence in question. Luckily, 2011 saw them open their doors to the public again after shutting last year.

1. Sealand

Far and away the most widely known and popular of the micronations, Sealand is based on a WWII sea fort in international waters off the coast of the UK. Occuppied by the Sealandian royal family since 1967, they have a strong internet presence, and appear to make much of their money by hosting internet gambling sites on their servers, as it’s perfectly legal in Sealand. They’ve also made quite a spin on tourism and selling of minor titles. While not technically recognised by any other nation, they’re on an island no one has jurisdiction of, so they generally just get left well enough alone. Strangely, Sealand received a major popularity boost thanks to the anime and manga series Hetalia: Axis Powers, which was about the personified embodiments of nations (don’t even ask) including the tiny Sealand.

Our world is constantly unsettled. There are few places that aren’t ravaged by crime, terror, and unrest, and America is no different. The American drug war began in 1969, when then-President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse to be a “serious national threat.” It’s true that drug abuse is awful and should be taken seriously, but the drug war has needlessly ruined or claimed the lives of a startling number of citizens and wasted billions of tax dollars. Furthermore, it has allowed drugs to flow through an unregulated market operated by dangerous, greedy people, putting users at an undue added risk to their lives. Today, many people are fighting to end the drug war — and their ranks include some former police officers. The following lists compiles some of today’s biggest advocates against the drug war, as well as the fight against police harassment, profiling, and brutality.

Ethan Nadelmann

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Ethan Nadelmann, a seasoned academic and writer, is best known as the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, one of the leading organizations in the United States for drug policy reform. His organization operates offices in five states, as well as one for national affairs in Washington, D.C. In 2000, the Drug Policy Alliance spearheaded California’s Proposition 36, which allows defendants convicted of non-violent drug offenses to receive a probationary sentence over jail time. It has also founded a plethora of needle exchange and syringe access programs, which prevent the spread of HIV and other blood-borne diseases among drug users. Under Nadelmann’s leadership, the DPA has become one of the most effective organizations for inspiring positive change in drug reform in the United States.

George Soros

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The Drug Policy Alliancewas created via the merging of a number of smaller institutions, among them Nadelmann’s Lindesmith Center. The Lindesmith Center was created using funds provided by famed Hungarian-born philanthropist George Soros. Soros, whose net worth is currently more than 14 billion dollars, has a long history of backing progressive causes. He is chairman of the Open Societies Institute, which was founded to promote social, economic, and legal reform, as well as to protect human rights. Soros’s involvement with the Drug Policy Alliance is ongoing; he currently serves on the DPA’s board of directors.

Norm Stamper

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This former Chief of the Seattle Police Department first entered the national consciousness during the World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference in 1999, when he authorized the use of tear gas to break up protests against the meeting. These events led to his resignation (he was quoted as saying, “I made a major mistake”), and he has spent much of his time since working to expose the difficulties of policing, as well as advocating for drug reform. As a writer for progressive online news source The Huffington Post, Stamper has blogged about Marijuana legalization, domestic abuse, racism, homophobia, and the drug war (check out this enlightening article about police involvement in the political struggle for drug reform: Cops For and Against the Drug War). He recently published a book titled Breaking Rank, about “the dark side of American policing.”

Neill Franklin

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One group making fantastic strides in the fight against the drug war is LEAP: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Neill Franklin, the organization’s executive director, is a 34-year veteran of the Maryland State Police and Baltimore Police Department. After years of arresting all sorts of people involved in the drug trade—some relatively innocent, some incredibly guilty—Franklin was convinced by former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke that the drug war was instigating more violence than it was preventing. Aside from his work with LEAP, Franklin is involved with a number of community and religious councils.

Howard Wooldridge

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Howard Wooldridge led an 18-year career as a police officer and detective in Bath Township Michigan before his turn at drug reform advocacy. In 2002, he co-founded LEAP. In 2003, he rode a horse named Misty 6,400 miles on saddleback from California to New York in order to encourage citizens to oppose drug prohibition. He served for four years as LEAP’s envoy to Washington, D.C., and now he works with COPs: Citizens Opposing Prohibition. He’s also the producer of the nifty t-shirts featured above.

Stephen Downing

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Stephen Downingwas a Police Commander when Richard Nixon announced the War on Drugs. Following that, he was the Bureau Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Narcotics Operation. In 2010, after his retirement, Downing spoke out in support of California’s Proposition 19, which would legalize the production, distribution, and consumption of Marijuana in the state. Downing claims that he changed his mind about policies regarding the drug when one of his undercover police officers were killed during an operation—he observed the senseless violence that prohibition of the drug inspired, and that outlawing marijuana put its distribution into the hands of street gangs. He now works as a representative for LEAP.

Joseph D. McNamara

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Joseph McNamarabegan his career in law enforcement as a beat cop in Harlem. In 1973, he became the Police Chief of Kansas City, Missouri, and three years later was appointed chief of San Jose, California, a position he held until his retirement in 1991. He’s a seasoned police veteran, a Harvard graduate, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution; he is an expert on drug reform. In a panel discussion led by the National Review, McNamara pointed out that $500 worth of heroin could bring in as much $100,000 on the streets, which is why violent offenders are drawn to the drug trade. The reason behind this inflation? Drug prohibition. If the drugs aren’t so hard to obtain, they won’t produce as much revenue for those willing to sell them.

Leigh Maddox

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This former Maryland StatePolice Captain changed her attitude about the War on Drugs when a good friend of hers, an undercover police officer in Washington, D.C., was shot in the head during a sting. Now she advocates against violence, and is attempting to steer drug policy away from criminal prosecution and towards substance abuse treatment. Maddox now serves on the board for LEAP and currently lectures about escalating violence associated with global drug cartels.

Walter Cronkite

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Walter Cronkiteis renowned worldwide for his two-decade run as the anchor for the CBS Evening News. In the years following his retirement, he became involved in political activism, working for causes including hunger, religious tolerance, personal liberty, and, yes, drug reform. In a fundraising letter he penned on behalf of the Drug Policy Alliance before his death in 2009, he made his position clear: “The war on drugs is a failure.”

Gary Johnson

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In 1998, Republican then-Governor of New MexicoGary Johnson was campaigning reelection. His platform? The decriminalization of Marijuana. He won by a 10% margin. Johnson considered the War of Drugs to be a waste of money, and believed that drug addiction should be considered a health issue and not a criminal one, and pointed out that nearly half of the money spent on police, courts, and prisons were used to prosecute drug offenders. Johnson is currently bidding for a Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential election, and one of his central concerns is drug policy reform.

Carl Dix

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There is a flipside to all of this police involvement. We grant a great deal of power to our authority figures, and sometimes, when that power goes unchecked, it gets abused. Police brutality is startlingly common, and it has become necessary for certain organizations and individuals to prevent it from happening again. Carl Dix is one of those individuals. As the national spokesperson for America’s Revolutionary Communist Party, Dix advocates for revolution as a means to end injustice. He has appeared on CNN, C-SPAN, and been published in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and New York Times Magazine discussing identity politics and human rights. In the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections, Dix ran as the Revolutionary Communist Party’s “anti-candidate.”

De Lacy Davis

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As the leader of Black Cops Against Police Brutality, Brother Sergeant De Lacy Davisspends his time advocating for the rights of people who were treated unfairly—and sometimes killed—by law enforcement officers such as himself. Davis began his career in 1986 with the police department in East Orange, New Jersey. He spent four years as the president of the Northeast chapter of the National Black Police Association, and was promoted to sergeant in 1998. De Lacy acts as a representative from his trade, traveling as far as Ghana and Rome to promote the rights of individual citizens. He has appeared on numerous television programs, from MTV News to Ricki Lake to Oprah, and continues to devote his time to the cause against violence.

Copwatch

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Copwatch is a collection of activist organizations committed to observing and documenting police activity. They maintain a searchable online database (available here: http://www.copwatch.org/) which allows the general public to file or search complaints regarding police misconduct. Copwatch was founded in 1990 in Berkeley, California, when a group of activists decided to document police activity during a series of attacks on the homeless at People’s Park in the city’s Telegraph Avenue neighborhood. Now Copwatch organizations exist in cities all over the country—and anyone can get involved.

The Black Panther Party

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It was the position of the legendary Black Panther Partyof the 1960s and 70s that police departments were institutionalizing abuse towards minorities. In 1966, when the party formed in Oakland, California, it organized a number of neighborhood patrols, which were sent to observe and document police activity. Black Panthers would often follow officers on their beats, which sometimes ended in bloody confrontations. These methods, which have since been refined by groups like Copwatch, laid the ground for modern police brutality advocacy.

Cory Doctorow

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Many people would recognize Cory Doctorow as a nerdy Internet maven, blogger, science-fiction writer, and a co-editor of the popular website Boing-Boing, but he’s also an advocate for a concept he refers to as “reverse surveillance.” Doctorow considers certain “Big Brother”-style modern police states (Like London, which recently placed closed circuit television cameras on nearly every one of its blocks) to be gathering too much information. The amount of data that compile about their citizens is so gargantuan that it becomes entirely unusable. In this opinion piece he wrote for the London Guardian, he explains how gathering data on innocent citizens makes crime detection impossible, referring to criminal incidents as “needles buried in a haystack of irrelevancies.”

Donald Trump is making some scary headway in the polls during this early, early presidential election season. But does he think he’s the only rich guy that could run? Here now are ten other rich dudes who could buy and sell you and would make better presidents or at the very least, better combovers.

Warren Buffet

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Warren Buffet is so rich, he gave away half his money and went from being the richest man in the United States to only the second richest. He could afford to give every person in the United States $100 just to vote for him. And with that kind of ca-ching, we could just buy Saudi Arabia outright and tell OPEC to suck it!

Chris Albrecht

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The man who turned HBO and the concept of pay TV to something other than a place for soft porn to die would make an awesome president. Who else would know more trivia about The Wire, The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire when meeting with foreign dignitaries? Maybe we could actually try that episode of the Wire where they legalize drugs. Plus, it would be impossible for Bill Maher to criticize the pres without getting fired.

Joe Buckmaster

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The CEO of Craigslist would not only reduce the government to one, simple, no frills website, he could also refurbish the White House for less than $200. Maybe he could apply Craigslist logic to the Healthcare system, so posters could simply post their symptoms and look for the lowest bid for a cure and a date for afterwards.

Ray Kroc

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The late, great franchiser of McDonald’s could finally achieve what every empire-building president has never before: exporting Democracy abroad. With the right bright red logo, drive thru and tasty sandwich, the entire world could also be free, obese and wear horrible little paper hats.

Michael Eisner

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The former CEO of Disney could revive the US like he revived Disney, with the help of better CGI. Imagine the savings at the Defense apartment when all the tanks, missiles and ships are digital rendered rather than actually built. Add a few monsters, genies and giant insects and no one in their right mind would attack the US.

Bill Gates

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As our first nerd president, Gates could finally show John McCain what email is. Although we run the risk of one of the jock countries to bully us out of our natural resources, he could totally hack our enemies stock exchanges and steal their money. It would be like Revenge of the Nerds 24/7.

Sir Richard Branson

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Although not technically American enough to run, he would have the coolest State of the Union Addresses from hot air balloons or while skiing down a mountain with a naked super model on his back. Plus, Air Force One would have a fully stocked mini bar and a store that sells music, DVD’s and T-shirts.

Mark Zuckerberg

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Finally, we could get some legislation for people who cheat at Farmville. Zuckerberg could legally execute people for posting horrible pictures of their friends and then tagging them without permission. America’s enemies would be brought to their knees, unable to receive pokes or “Like” anyone and Zuck already has all their private information too.

Steve Jobs

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Under President Jobs’ efficient, intuitive, but iron-fisted rule, our technology would become state-of-the-art. Of course, those who resisted would be rounded up and placed into Apple Reeducation Camps, but it would come with a free iPad2. Additionally, the scourge of Windows Vista would finally be eliminated.

Joe Francis

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Any man that could make lesbian porn mainstream can do anything. Let’s face it, as the CEO of Girls Gone Wild, what country would attack us? The Israeli/Palestinian conflict could finally be settled with a hot oil wrestling contest with hot, real college chicks. Who would win? Everybody!

Each year, lobbying groups in Washington spend billions of dollars trying to buy influence. Corporations, special-interest groups, unions, and single-interest groups like the NRA — all of them have poured money into efforts to shape laws and regulations to fit their interests. No doubt about it: most lobbies are forces to be reckoned with.

Despite numerous criticisms, lobbying in the US is protected under the First Amendment, which enshrined the right to petition the government. Recently, though, legislation was passed that forced lobbying organizations to be more transparent in their deals. Websites like the Center For Responsive Politics now track spending by industry, company, and individual groups. In the spirit of information sharing, we’ve compiled a list of some of the biggest lobbies in America, and the way they’ve affected politics.

The Tech Lobby

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Over the past 15 years, the tech industry has become one of the big spenders in lobbying, doling out over $120 million in 2010. With the power of tech giants Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft behind it, the computer and Internet lobby has a lot of weight to throw around. By weight, we mean money: In 2010, Microsoft alone spent over $6.9 million in federal lobbying efforts.

The tech lobby’s priorities include trying to lower corporate tax rates and pass cybersecurity legislation. In the last few years, tech industry heavy-hitters and activists have found themselves at odds with communication companies and governing bodies like the FCC over the issue of Net Neutrality. In the summer of 2010, Google brokered a deal with Verizon that seemed an abrupt about-face from its former stance. Meanwhile, the House has gridlocked a bill by the FCC that would regulate ISPs and give them authority to step into disputes; more evidence of the tech lobby, hard at work.

The Mining Industry

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The mining lobby, particularly the coal industry, has had its fingers in American politics for a long time. In the late 19th and early 20th century, it was responsible for some of the most dramatic labor uprisings in history. More recently, it’s been trying to sell politicians and tax payers on the idea of “clean coal”, which supposedly reduces carbon emissions and other pollutants. Environmental advocacy groups are skeptical, to say the least, but mining lobbyists have spent nearly $100 million dollars in the last three years, ensuring that they have lawmakers’ ears. In addition, the mining lobby has attempted to sway lawmakers in regulating labor laws, worker safety, and environmental regulations.

The Defense Industry

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Defense spending in America has reached an all time high. Since 1998, military spending has grown each consecutive year, particularly after the events of 9/11. The Pentagon, military contractors and lobbyists, and the war hawks the serve on arms committees form an Iron Triangle, a nearly impermeable and interlocking dynamic of bureaucracy, influence, and favors.

The heaviest hitters in the industry are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics. Lockheed Martin alone received 7% of the funds that were paid out by the Pentagon, and has additional multi-million dollar contracts with the IRS, NSA, TSA, CIFA, FBI, the US Census, and the postal service.

Political analysts are predicting the end of growth in military spending, however. After nearly 10 years of involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with worries over national and state budget deficits, Americans are war-weary and beginning to turn against the Iron Triangle of contractors, lawmakers, and lobbyists. The next few years will test whether the defense industry is as recession-proof as previously believed.

The Agribusiness Industry

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Agribusiness lobbies represent a diverse collection of special-interest groups, including large food manufacturers like Kraft and Unilever, huge agricultural companies like Monsanto, tobacco companies such as Phillip Morris, biofuel producers like UNICA, and logging companies like International Paper and Weyerhauser. These companies spend upwards of $150 million each year, funding campaigns and pushing legislation through Congress.

Agribusiness lobbyists are responsible for holding up bills regulating food labeling, climate change, and biofuel production. In the last 10 years, they’ve pushed through legislation that undid much of the Clinton-era environmental efforts, powering down the EPA and amending bills such as the Clean Water Act to allow for greater industrial pollution.

Big Oil

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The oil industry is in thick with lawmakers, nobody can argue with that. George W. Bush and his presidential cabinet had deep ties to different oil companies: Vice-President Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton, Condoleeza Rice was a director of Chevron. In addition, Big Oil spends more on lobbying than any other group: nearly $150 million in 2010.

After the disastrous BP oil spill last spring, oil and gas lobbying came into sharp focus in the American media, especially as BP stepped up efforts to remake its tarnished image. Recently, the oil industry has been unveiled as a major funder of the Tea Party, which advocates less governmental intervention and regulation, and generally denies climate change; all of which suits the oil industry quite well.

The Financial Lobby

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The banking and finance lobbies in America are working overtime to try and keep the free market as free as possible. Financial lobbies are far and away the biggest spenders on the Hill, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to campaigns and political parties. Goldman Sachs alone donated over $2.6 million to various politicians and governing bodies. In return, financial institutions have been allowed free reign with other people’s money; they were responsible for the real estate bubble and the sub-prime mortgage of 2008, which contributed to the Great Recession. A senate committee on the financial crisis of the late 2000’s found that, “The crisis was not a natural disaster, but the result of high risk, complex financial products; undisclosed conflicts of interest; and the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies, and the market itself to rein in the excesses of Wall Street.”

Since the market crash, banking lobbyists helped push through the financial bailout in 2008, but have spent the last three years digging their heels in against any push towards reforms.

Big Pharma

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Along with the financial lobbies, the pharmaceutical and health products industries have historically been one of the biggest and most powerful lobbies in Washington. Drug companies enjoy more power and influence in America than with any other government in the world. Pfizer Inc, one of the major political contributors of the pharmaceutical industry, spent more than $25 million dollars in 2009, ensuring that the Obama administration’s health care reforms didn’t rock the boat overmuch. As it stands, drug companies stand to gain a huge increase in their already bloated profits after the new healthcare reforms go through; prescription drug prices are set to remain steady, despite already being the highest in the world, but an estimated 32 million Americans are going to be newly insured.

The AARP

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Formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, the AARP is an NGO and special interest group for people aged 50 years and over. According to its mission statement, it is “dedicated to enhancing quality of life for all as we age, leading positive social change, and delivering value to members through information, advocacy, and service.” The AARP offers a range of services, products, and special offers to its 38 million members. It is also one of the largest lobbying groups in Washington. In 2010, AARP spent $22 million on lobbying, with most of its efforts going into health care and Medicare reform, Social Security, and legislation regarding retirement and age discrimination.

AARP has recently come under fire for supporting Obama’s health care reform initiatives in 2009 and 2010. It has also raised eyebrows for being an incredibly profitable company. In addition to member dues and donations, AARP earns extra revenue by sponsoring private insurance policies.

The Pro-Israel Lobby

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The Pro-Israel Lobby, headed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has been called the NRA of foreign policy lobbies, “a hard-edged, pugnacious bunch that took names and kept score”. The almost-unilateral popular support of Israel in America, not to mention the nearly $3 billion in aid the country receives every year, did not come about by accident. It’s the result of over 50 years of hard lobbying. Politicians and pundits alike are quick to support the Jewish state, and reluctant to criticize it. Pro-Israel groups such as AIPAC spent close $4 million last year, ensuring that US-Israel ties will remain strong. The Pro-Israel lobby remains one of the strongest and most influential foreign-policy lobbies in the US.

The NRA

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The NRA has been one of the most consistently influential political lobbies in American politics for the past 30 years, since it first endorsed Ronald Reagan as a presidential candidate. More recently, it spent an $7.2 million during the 2010 elections on so-called private expenditures, messages that advocated or opposed certain political candidates. They even got Chuck Norris to star in an ad for their “Trigger The Vote” campaign, imploring potential voters to register.

Much of the NRA’s power, however, seems to lie less in its spending and more in its ability to mobilize its members, who are 4 million strong and well-versed in grassroots campaigning. Gun rights are a polarizing issue in America, and can make or break politicians and legislation. Al Gore, for example, lost the 2000 election in his own home state of Tennessee, primarily because of his pro gun-control stance. Even now, fear of reprisals from the NRA is holding up a bill from the Bureau on Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that would stem gun-trafficking to Mexico, in the hopes of alleviating the current drug war.

We’ve all noticed a bit of a change in the socio-political atmosphere in the last few years. Whether it’s in the emergence of social networking monopolies or the advancement of tracking systems, it seems more and more that Big Brother has got us covered — in more ways than one. 
 

Google Reads Our Mail

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The scenario: you’ve been corresponding with your sister about her wedding, a subject you already hate, when lo and behold, in the margins of the Gmail script there suddenly springs up a wealth of information pertaining to weddings. Gmail’s unsettling habits of honing in on keywords in emails to personalize advertising is just one of the charming ways in which personal information becomes slightly more public than it should. But then, who needs privacy when they’ve got endless peripheral information at their fingertips? 

Twitter

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It’s a sign of national trust when a social networking site has to be blocked by a government in revolt. Or at very least, a sign of the times. Of-the-minute (and to-the-second) updates on the mental activity of an individual bears a disturbing resemblance to some kind of standardized monitoring of brainwaves. And there’s something especially disturbing in the thought that so many of us willingly, gleefully indulge in it, thinking nothing of the implications of something so ruthlessly self-monitoring. What’s more are brilliant contretemps by foreign governments (namely South Korea) to make people think it’s so voluntary it’s democratic. But many of us (though not enough) know better.  

Avatars

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Why does practically every website insist on some semblance—however enhanced—of visual identity? No sooner does one venture over to The Guardian, or some likewise reputable organ of news and culture, to see sitting smugly beside some article the author’s face in thumbnail size. And to make matters worse, the comment section is overrun with ghostly, faceless avatars vaguely the shape of what an online magazine format thinks a human looks like. It puts a face on the printed word which doesn’t need to be there, and relegates the comment section to an anonymous mass of individuals with troublingly negative opinions. Call it a subtle undermining tactic by the system that brought you the iPhone and iPad—making everything increasingly about ‘I’ while canceling out any identity ‘I’ could possibly have. 

Mass Transit

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For most of us, there’s simply no other way to get around in a large city without stooping to the disheartening level of mass transit, where behaviors are monitored, courtesy of security cameras, and patrons are blasted in twenty-second intervals with warnings to keep their belongings in sight, to trust no one, and to generally operate in constant fear of one’s surroundings. While the train stops for a fifteen minute stall (for no explainable reason — or at least one they don’t care to explain to passengers) and then continues at a snail’s pace for the rest of the journey, you’re left devising a plan in your head of how to organize a boycott so that the price at least won’t continue rising steadily, while simultaneously realizing that the state of one’s bank account makes it a complete impossibility. When monopoly meets cattle-herding meets fear tactics, it’s as close to a police state as it can subtly get. 
 

RFID Chips

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It’s a Matrix-like invention with all the seductive implications of a film about loss of identity—something digital which makes a home literally under one’s skin. Mostly used for tracking people’s whereabouts, the device now has another, friendlier face. Having been recently adopted under the banner of health improvements, chips are available for retinal enhancement as well as diabetes. But can the potentiality of such inventions outweigh the thought of having a GPS tracking machine imbedded in one’s person? Time will tell. 
 

Health Advertising

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In times of political upheaval, or even general downtime, advertising takes a sinister turn in the character of alarmist images depicting the disease in vogue at the moment, accompanied by a suggestion to get vaccinated at the earliest date possible. Marketing a disease like it’s just come out of nowhere is nothing short of fear mongering, and generates much the same response from an easily frightened public. From the terrifying “Influenza Kills” ads, the recent Hulu commercials warning against the suddenness with which Meningitis strikes, the government-approved message seems to be to run for your life — into the arms of doctors wielding a vaguely important vaccination shot available to all. 

Google Earth

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It’s weird enough that Google can see all of our houses. Now we have news of its true importance — Google earth can be used by government officials as an unobtrusive tracking device to suss out a criminal suspect’s general whereabouts. While it’s potentially a helpful law enforcement tool, there’s also something less than cozy in the idea of the Google camera cars driving all around the world in their desperate struggle to visually map the entire world — both at a distance and from a suspiciously close-up view.  
 

Forced Fluoride

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It used to be the weekly fluoride dose we’d all swish and spit through in grade school — until it stopped for unknown reasons. Now fluoride is back with an ungodly vengeance — in our water supply. The reason? As vague in origin as the abrupt halting of the grade-school treatments themselves. No one can quite make up their minds on the benefits or dangers of fluoride — but the fact that it’s nationally administered without anyone’s having a say in the matter, is cause itself for worry. 

Amazon.com Customer Purchase Info

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There’s always the private search function on Firefox for when things get too smutty. But when the North Carolina Department of Revenue solicited Amazon.com last year for a history of sales of state residents — including names and addresses — things got personal. Thankfully Amazon declined — but that still doesn’t answer the question of why North Carolina was so interested in the purchases of their inhabitants, enough to make an indecent proposal indecent enough for even an online shopping behemoth as powerful as Amazon to refuse.  

Anti-Depressants

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At first glance they seem so painlessly marketed — those little pills with their benefits personified by a bouncing cloud or a carefree couple strolling in the park. But in recent years, drug marketing, especially for anti-depressants, has become less and less specific in its target audience. Soon, the indications of clinical depression became so loose that almost everyone finds themselves responding to the sympathetic Zoloft commercials that play at halftime. Sertraline, the chemical first patented in the Zoloft drug, has since been made available in generic form. But is it a ploy on behalf of the drug industries, or larger, more politically conceived response to a drone-like mass populace which looks for a cure in all the wrong places?

In honor of President’s Day, we’ve listed 25 of the best President’s Day quotes we could find below. Each quote comes from the mouth or pen of a US president.

1. I know only two tunes: one of them is ‘Yankee Doodle’, and the other one isn’t. -Ulysses S. Grant

2. I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world. -George Washington

3. If hard work is not another name for talent, it is the best possible substitute for it. -James Garfield

4. Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom. -Thomas Jefferson

5. You don’t get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier. -George W. Bush

6. Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. -Ronald Reagan

7. We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon. -Jimmy Carter

8. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. … Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. -Barack Obama

9. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. -Bill Clinton

10. History, in general, only informs us what bad government is. -Thomas Jefferson

11. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. -James Madison

12. Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education. -George H.W. Bush

13. The lesson of history is rarely learned by the actors themselves. -James A. Garfield

14. Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. -Theodore Roosevelt

15. Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die. -Herbert Hoover

16. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. -Franklin D. Roosevelt

17. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -Harry S. Truman

18. I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot. -Abraham Lincoln

19. Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. -Dwight D. Eisenhower

20. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal. -Abraham Lincoln

21. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. -John F. Kennedy

22. The success of our popular government rests wholly upon the correct interpretation of the deliberate, intelligent, dependable popular will of America. -Warren Harding

23. The chief business of the American people is business. -Calvin Coolidge

24. No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. -James Polk

25. Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. -Grover Cleveland