Chris Christie has recently made headlines by demonstrating just how much hot air his bloated balloon of a body can release at once. After a proposal to restrict how the National Security Agency can collect phone records was narrowly defeated last week, Christie went off on a tangent attempting to smear any influence libertarianism has had on both of the two major parties. “I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought,” Christie said.
The proposal aimed at narrowing the NSA’s reach garnered support from Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and his political polar opposite, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. The fact that both liberal stalwarts and libertarians came together to support a bill like this is evidence of the ever-growing popularity of the liberty movement.
When asked whether Christie was including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in his anti-liberty arguments, he responded by saying, “You can name any number of people who have engaged in it, and he’s one of them. These esoteric, intellectual debates — I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation.”
Well, if any libertarian explained the follies of an interventionist foreign policy to the widows and orphans in New Jersey, that would be a step in the right direction. In fact, the United States employs a foreign policy that makes us less safe and prone to attacks like Benghazi and 9/11.
Radicalized people around the world do not hate America because we are free, rich and prosperous but because our government supports global military imperialism instead of peace and commerce. Christie could seriously use a libertarian lesson on foreign policy.
Not only has Christie displayed his control-freak, big government tendencies regarding foreign policy, but he has also displayed them at home. It was only recently that Christie decided New Jersey residents were competent enough to pump their own gas. In the past, self-serve has been illegal. Christie repealed these laws on that assumption that it would lower gas prices. If Christie really wanted to lower gas prices, he would do something about the 49.5-cent per gallon tax embedded in our gasoline prices.
Despite being a proud member of the GOP who spews pro-business, small government rhetoric, Christie has a history of chastising business owners in his own state. After Hurricane Sandy devastated New Jersey, Christie went on an all-out statist assault against “price gougers.” Christie wanted to crack down on those evil businessmen and businesswomen who sought to charge prices they named for the goods they owned. The rise in the cost of goods during a disaster is actually a good thing because it ensures goods are spread evenly among consumers as opposed to one entity buying them all at once. This is a free-market mechanism designed to properly distribute goods in high demand during an emergency.
If Chris Christie is going to engage in another one of his public temper tantrums, it should be one that endlessly apologizes for supporting a pro-war, imperialist foreign policy, babying people at the gas pump and punishing the businessmen and businesswomen of New Jersey.
T. Emmett Ryan is a Santa Fe political science sophomore. His columns appear Tuesdays.
