Posted on 03/02/2015 8:45:22 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Netflix’s enormously popular political thriller House of Cards returned for its third season on Friday—and unless you were playing politics in real life at CPAC 2015 you’ve probably seen the whole thing already. (Either way, don’t worry: No spoilers here.)
Helmed by Kevin Spacey’s charismatic, manipulative and murderous President Frank Underwood, House of Cards has never offered a flattering portrait of politics. This season, though, several moments in particular stood out as offering an almost libertarian take on the fake promises and real sliminess of Washington.
Entitlement programs are sucking us dry
“Social Security. Medicare. Medicaid. Every entitlement program that is sucking us dry, I want it all on the table and this doesn’t go nearly far enough. So we obviously have to get back to some basics, remind ourselves of some of the facts that are before us … This [$32,781] is what the average senior citizen gets in one year from entitlements—whether they were a janitor or they ran a hedge fund. This money is a job we could be giving to a single mother or a student just out of school. Now at the moment, 44 cents of every tax dollar goes to pay for these programs. By 2030, it’ll be over half—62 cents. Entitlements are bankrupting us.” — President Frank Underwood, House of Cards, Season 3, Episode 1
Whether Underwood’s $32,781 figure is exactly accurate or not, he’s certainly right that entitlement spending is unsustainable—that it’s sucking us dry.
Social Security alone, as Michael Tanner explains at Reason, “will run a $69 billion cash-flow deficit this year. And that’s the good news. Every year after, that shortfall will worsen. All together, Social Security is facing future shortfalls worth more than $24.9 trillion.” Worse, he adds, the “so-called trust fund is simply an accounting measure, specifying how much money the federal government owes the program out of general revenues, not an actual asset that can be used to pay benefits.”
While Underwood’s jobs proposal is, ironically, just one more entitlement, he diagnoses the problem correctly. My generation is unlikely to see a dime from Social Security, even though we’ll have to pay into it for most of our lives.
The U.S. drone war on civilians
“Civilians are listed as ‘other militants.’ But the government offers no evidence that’s true. It definitely wasn’t in my case. How rigorous can your process be?! … One civilian killed [by drone strike] in 2010? That has to be wrong … There is a fine line between duty and murder.” — Kaseem Mahmoud, House of Cards, Season 3, Episode 4
Mahmoud is an American citizen who has lost both of his legs below the knee thanks to an American drone strike. And though his story is fictional, it could just as easily have shown up in today’s news.
As I’ve written here at Rare in a comprehensive look at why drone strikes are so troubling, in Pakistan, a major target for US drone strikes, as few as 2% of those who die by our drone strikes are high-level terror suspects.
As for the other 98%, it’s difficult to determine who’s a civilian and who isn’t. That’s because the Obama Administration classifies every male from 18 to 60 who is killed as a terrorist, regardless of evidence. This “guilty until proven innocent” rule gives the President free reign—all while pretending that every kill is a success. Many of these men are simply poor farmers in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some independent estimates put the civilian to terrorist kill ratio as high as 50:1!
And as for Mahmoud’s American citizenship, that’s not a stretch either: One U.S. drone strike actually assassinated a 16-year-old American boy who wasn’t suspected of any terrorist activity.
Lawless government
“Through our laws, we seek to create a more perfect union. Government officials who abuse the law—or, at the very least, exploit the edges of it for their own personal gain—tarnish our democracy and weaken the bonds of our great nation … Someone needs to scrub the stink from [the executive branch].” — Heather Dunbar, House of Cards, Season 3, Episode 4
Dunbar makes these comments in carefully crafted political speech, and since this is House of Cards, it’s probably safe to assume we’ll find out her motives aren’t quite as pure as the quote suggests.
But she’s right about the danger of a government that has no respect for the rule of law. Indeed, though the rule of law has too often been ignored in American government, as Glenn Greenwald has noted “even when this principle was being violated, its supremacy was also being affirmed: resoundingly and unanimously in the case of the founders.”
Obviously, rule of law alone can’t guarantee “a just and free society, it’s absolutely necessary for it.” We can never be safe from the suppression of liberty unless we can honestly say with Thomas Paine, “[I]n America THE LAW IS KING.”
Government lies and is selfish
“For too long, we in Washington have been lying to you. We say we’re here to serve you when in fact we’re serving ourselves. And why? We are driven by our own desire to get reelected—our need to stay in power eclipses our duty to govern. — President Frank Underwood, House of Cards, Season 3, Episode 2
In a televised address promoting his new initiative, Underwood finally tells the American people—the TV show American people, not those of us beyond the fourth wall he often breaks—the basic truth about government which inspires the entire show.
And it’s this fact, now made explicit, which makes House of Cards ring so true to life: Our “representatives” in Washington are mostly more interested in representing their own self-interest than that of their constituents. Public servants they are not, and usually the only politician to say this so openly has the last name of Paul, not Underwood.
Of course, this is Frank Underwood, and he’s only telling the truth to—you guessed it—serve himself. So it goes in real life Washington, and so it goes in House of Cards.
Nixon: ‘if the President does it, it isn’t illegal’
Was it Jeffrey Toobin (Leftist lawyer and commenter) that said ‘Obama is the President that Nixon wanted to be’. Bammy’s lawlessness is destroying our country. And NO ONE is trying to stop him.
With that said, Underwood is behaving like a liberal caricature of a Republican with his rhetoric and motivations, and so the dialogue is not a compliment to libertarianism at all, but just a plot device to portray him as even more evil to a liberal audience.
The perspective changed. Frank used to be self-serving thug. Now he’s a True Believer worried about his legacy. They have wandered off into political things and made them so simplistic that there’s something to piss-off everyone.
I got the impression after the staff meeting where these issues were brought up, his main goal was to get funding for his own pet government jobs program, because he originally diverted money from FEMA, but had to stop raiding.
Long story and I don’t want to ruin if for others, but he needs the entitlement money for his own entitlements.
Season 3 is a crashing bore so far. One policy wonk speech after another. Characters hold press conferences, plead before the Supreme Court, pontificate at the UN, give endless toasts at state dinners, or address the nation on TV. And I’m only on Episode 4.
Speeches are the epitome of Lazy Writing.
Oh and, let’s set a bunch of scenes at the United Nations! Because THAT’S entertainment! What’s in store for Season 5? The inner workings of the Department of Agriculture?
Well, if the storyline follows the original British version of the House of Cards, there won’t be a 4th season. We’ll see.
I’m actually finding Stamper’s story a lot more compelling than Frank’s this season.
Yep, and the background music doesn't help. It reminds me of the last season of Fringe.
Show, don't tell.
I haven’t watched all of them but I know enough to know that there will be a season 4-unfortunately because it needs to end now.
So Republicans stop selling me the crap that I need to sacrifice, you sound more like Democrats when you do that.
“I’m actually finding Stamper’s story a lot more compelling than Frank’s this season.”
I knew we were in trouble, dramatically speaking, when (except for the prologue) the first twenty minutes? Half hour? of the first episode of the season were set in a hospital. ZZZZzzzzzzzzz.
I have watched 5 episodes of season 3 so far and I don’t think it follows it that much any more. Even the second season already strayed quite far.
Season 3 seems just boring bad television after the first two, that I liked.
Also in British version 3rd series was more than 10 years after the 1st series so the change and new arrogance in F.U seemed more believable.
I think he is behaving just like Hussein
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