Do You Stand By The President?
The State
I was reminded recently that there are in fact people who still "stand by" the current president of the United States government. This, of course, baffles me.
Politics is the system of pull, corruption, and theft. It is unproductive. It doesn't actually solve problems. It doesn't create any goods or values. It dominates; it controls; it takes from some to give to others. Usually giving to people who haven't earned it, to themselves, and powerful, connected interests like banks and other corporations. They manipulate, propagandize, and meddle in our lives.
To be successful in politics, one must be shrewd, conniving; basically a pathological sociopath. To want to do nothing productive and lord over other people you must be. To think you know best how other people should live, eat, work, and get along, you must be.
The US government is the largest polluter, largest war maker, largest funder of conflicts, and largest manipulator of people the world over. Politics is the system by which we think we have control over this beast. In the most demented way, people come to associate with it! They apologize for it, and worship it! It's Stockholm syndrome, writ large.
The definition of government is an institution with a monopoly on the use of force in a geographic area. It does everything it does via control, theft, power, guns, violence, and propaganda. If you think it does anything good, that "good" is based on those things. Giving it the maximum amount of benefit of the doubt - government should be seen as a necessary evil, but nothing to be admired.
The President
The president represents the head of this beast. He is the politician who was the most sociopathic; who could tell the best lies; campaign the most effectively; who could best manipulate emotions; and have the greatest amount of delusion to think he alone is fit to make decisions for millions of people.
Even worse - to the great confusion of the people - the politicians, bureaucrats, the president, the military, and the police are not there to serve us. They do not selflessly work for you. They do not answer to you. They work for themselves. A state is a self-serving institution looking out for its interests. They are judge, jury, and executioner, the three branches, and are not separate, independent, balancing forces. They are all on the same team, and that team, the state, trumps any little allegiance to being in a particular party. Republicans and Democrats will always stick together to defend and grow their master.
Behind this beast is a network of funders, families, foundations, think tanks, and other shadowy organizations that control and direct government. This is where the president is picked. Before a campaign is barely underway, these institutions are deciding their two preferred candidates. Notice I said two, so that no matter who wins, they win. They're all on the same team. It's a modern, totalitarian dynasty. This is all mostly hidden from the public, but look close and you'll see certain front runner candidates attending secret gatherings and being vetted before the campaign gets into full swing. You'll see the unfavored candidates being swindled out of delegates, air time, etc.
It gets even more obvious when we look at the over the table funding and backing, and how oblivious people are to it. The media and political watchers make a big deal out of some conservative getting contributions from the Koch Brothers, or some liberal receiving funds from George Soros. This is a distraction, though. In reality, the big two candidates always receive major backing from the same sorts of corporate donors, dispelling the notion that each fits into little left/right molds. These sorts of donors are banks, defense contractors, technology and telecommunications companies, pharmaceutical companies, and others - basically all the most government-connected industries - because they'd be happy with either guy.
There is this oft-repeated slogan that the president is the "leader of the free world". This is such an oxymoron it doesn't need much of an answer. But, here's one anyway. A free people do not need a "leader". What are you being lead to? And what free world? It's just blatant narcissistic nationalism to think "we" are the free and good country of the world - and our dear leader is here to lead the world to freedom.
Freedom is buying what I want, working where I want, doing what I want with my life and my body as long as I don't infringe upon others' lives or property. Freedom is not constant wars, false flags, and an army of armed drones. Freedom is not a law, a bill, a restriction, a regulation, a tax, a tariff. It is not the drug war, the prison complex, the corrupt authoritarian legal system. Freedom is not propaganda, the TSA, the NSA, no-knock raids, and execution by police.
The disconnect comes in when people disregard all of that and say "Oh yeah, I'm against all of that. "I'm for [choose political buzzword: equality, free enterprise, prosperity, justice, etc.], not that stuff. And besides I know what you mean; that stuff is terrible! We just need to get this guy out of office and vote in a better leader" (or "but all of that is the last guy's fault. My guy isn't for any of that. He's trying his best.") Well sorry to break it to you; but the two parties aren't any different in substance, only in rhetoric. Your guy is for all the bad stuff, and so is the other guy.
Or people will be selective with where they place the blame, based on who's in office. If their guy is in office, and things are going poorly they'll say "well he's got the wrong people around him/it's just the system, he's doing his best/these problems started with the last guy". But if it's the other guy in office and things are going poorly we get different answers; "the president isn't leading/he's a terrible president/he's incompetent/he doesn't know a thing about xyz issue." Both parties do this. (Check out this Facebook page for some fun information on this topic: George W. Obama)
America is very president and administration focused. We're told that even if we don't support a president's policies, we should "respect the office" or stand by him as our leader. Why? For what rational reason should free, thinking human beings be obligated to respect a man whose sole job is to lord over them? The man is worshiped like some kind of king. Then, the man and his office end up getting much of the credit for our successes, and when things go wrong, he gets the blame, but only from political opponents. In general, the opinion molders and writers of history never let it be said that a president had an overall negative effect on the country. In general, presidents are always to be glorified. In reality, the president himself single-handedly makes very few decisions, and has very little impact on the current state of affairs. For some reason, this tends to infuriate politically obsessed people - because they are so programmed to think their guy is good and the other guy is causing all the problems. They want so badly to believe in the all-mighty power of the president, good or bad.
I don't care which fool is in office at any given moment. Rather than pragmatically picking and choosing our viewpoints every few years, and changing them up whenever it suits our needs, I think we should all be much more focused on ideas. With objective standards and firm principles, it becomes much easier to navigate through and understand the political world. Instead of being a supporter of your party, or "standing by" some guy...find some principles to stand on and stand by those.
Obama
I thought after 6 years of the current president that no one would really be standing by him anymore. I thought people who call themselves Democrats might still prefer him over a Republican, but stand by him? No. To me that phrase means accepting, condoning, and supporting everything this administration has done. Looking at the actions of the administration truthfully, anyone with any decent moral compass and sense of rationality should be appalled, and at the very least only selectively support certain government actions, but not all of them.
At this point, if you still stand by the president that means you support an ever growing police state, the prison-industrial complex, and the corrupt police departments across the country. You must support no knock raids because someone owns a plant. Maybe you stand by stingray cellphone surveillance. If you stand by the president that must mean you support the chicago black site, and indefinite detention in general made possible through the NDAA, signed by the president. 
You might support the huge ramping up of unmanned drone warfare, raining down all over the middle east. You're standing by smuggling weapons to drug cartels in Mexico. You're also standing by what really happened in Libya (overthrowing the government of one of the most prosperous countries in Africa because they didn't toe the American line - only to then help smuggle that government's weapons to Syria and Iraq to arm the rebels (ISIS), all while claiming it had to do with "Radical Islamists".) You're supporting not closing the Guantanamo site. And you must support the unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. I suppose you also support TSA body scanners (sold to you for security, but really brought to you with crony contracts.)
To stand by the president also means you support the Wall Street bailouts, which were just bonuses to powerful people who messed up. And you support the "Stimulus Package" even though it was just wasteful spending of imaginary money on make-work programs. I guess if you support the president still, you stand by the crackdown on organic farming and natural health. 
You support the raiding and destruction of peaceful farms because they were suspected of (and usually aren't) growing the wrong plant. If you stand by presidents like this it means you support literally funding, training, and supporting groups like ISIS, using their propaganda to scare us into another war, all the while, standing by "our" "ally" Saudi Arabia - who "legally" beheads dozens of people every year.
The Other Buffoons
Trust me, this is not only for Obama supporters. Even worse is the staunch Bush supporter, that after 14 years since his term began they still "stand by" him, and wish for the good ole days. We've all seen the "Miss me yet" billboards. This means disregarding the reality of 14 years of his policies coming to light; and the fact that his administration is on par domestically, economically, and internationally with any Democrat regime. I guess we have to mention the people who cling on to some romantic notion of the presidents of the distant past. With them, we have had even more time to uncover how insane they were. Washington and his buddy Hamilton ruined the new government. Lincoln was a racist and wanted to ship blacks out of the country. Wilson enacted the income tax, the Federal Reserve, and got us into the blunder of WWI, thus helping cause WWII and all the proceeding atrocities. Truman said it "was the greatest thing in history" that they could vaporize hundreds of thousands of people. And Johnson was an adulterous, murdering control freak; involved in numerous frauds, cover-ups, and scandals.
Moving Forward
Obviously, I've been a little over the top. I don't think a good moral, rational person would truly support all the things I laid out - which is all the more reason to stop saying you "stand by" this president, or any other; and to re-evaluate your entire political philosophy! That's the hitch. People will say they support freedom, or equality, or justice, or prosperity, or morality - and in their daily lives, they might not go against that. But, in rabidly supporting government, politicians, wars, elections - without giving a single critical thought to those things - then yes, whether you like it or not, you are supporting the evils of government.
Many people think the "best" presidents are the ones who "lead" us to war or instituted some big program. If more of these people understood economics, unintended consequences, and why the US has gone to war each time - they would look at this differently. No government program has a long-term positive effect. Eventually, the harm is seen, or they collapse of their own unsustainable weight. Even worse, many government programs were actually started for what we would now consider abhorrent reasons ( for example, marijuana laws designed to specifically target blacks and the counter-culture jazz scene, and minimum wages started specifically to keep unskilled minorities out of the labor pool - both of which are working as intended up to today.)
No presidents should be stood by. They represent the pinnacle of sociopathy - the ability to lie, manipulate, put on fake smiles, give speeches, and live off of our money. Strive for a new understanding of politics. See that at a bare minimum it is an evil that should be endured, but not applauded. See that a world without it is possible. At a bare minimum, withdraw your consent, focus on your life, your family, your future. Focus on the positive; on growing the best life you can for yourself and your loved ones. Don't waste your time or money on campaigns. Invest in what you believe in. Rather than being part of team D or R - try developing a good moral philosophy to live by. You'll find yourself much happier. Look for ways to circumvent their edicts and controls. Be your own person. Help yourself, your family, and your community see what true independence is like.
For a much more accurate account of the presidents from best to worst check out the site below. Most historians (court historians) admire and praise presidents for their ability to "act", to "lead", and so on. In other words, the best presidents in the eyes of state propagandists are the ones who glorified the state as much as possible by waging war, enacting new laws, enlarging the size of government, and granting themselves more power. Presidents during those times are always at the top of the list. In the list below you'll see them ordered a little different - based on who has done harm to the country and to the liberty of individuals, and who did not.
The Presidents Ranked - According to real history and libertarian principles
Reassessing the Presidency Seminar - Free video lecture series
