A Call for Do-Nothing Presidents Without Legacies

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob,

My new article on the website of the Future of Freedom Foundation is on, “A Call for Do-Nothing Presidents Without Legacies.”

Presidents are obsessed with the “legacies” that leave behind after they leave the White House. But the very idea of presidential “legacies” is based on the idea that it is a duty and task of those holding the presidency to somehow impose on America a “vision” captured in a set of government policies.

The fact is, in a free society, presidents under the American constitutional system are nothing more than someone employed to fulfill a small and enumerated set of functions. Therefore, rather than “do-something” presidents trying to leave America in their own ideological and political image, we should call for “do-nothing” presidents who sit in the White House and do what their original and narrow “job description” requires of them under the Constitution.

But beyond that, presidents should leave the citizenry alone, as individuals, to pursue and design their own lives guided by their own ideas and dreams, and leave the matter of “legacies” to the people themselves as they may want or desire to leave something to family or friends or to “society,” as they voluntary choose.

Hence, a free society equals “do-nothing” presidents.

 https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/call-nothing-presidents-without-legacies/

Best,
Richard