What’s That With Czars Anyway?
President-Elect Barack Obama has said he intends to appoint “czars” for a variety of issues. He will, for instance, have a global warming czar (ironically a woman who has close ties to socialists who want to fight global warming by destroying the American economy) but also a ‘technology czar.’
Whatever the position means exactly, it is clear that the ‘czar’ will have quite some power and influence in an Obama administration. The czar title, which signals authority, indicates that the person will have tremendous power, possibly even the freedom to do as he pleases with regards to a specific subject.
Which brings me to the term ‘czar.’
Why does everyone, including Obama, use the word ‘czar’ to describe the person? Czar is a distinctly unamerican and undemocratic title, given to the past hereditary rulers of Russia. A czar was free to do as he pleased; his power was limited by nothing and no one. It did not matter what the people thought, the czar did what he considered best; best for himself, best for his family or best for his country.
Russia’s czars are, historically, among the most oppressive monarch imaginable. They truly oppressed their people and were more than willing to use violence against each and every single person they considered a danger to them in one way or another… and those who were not considered a danger were often ‘punished’ as well.
Calling someone a ‘czar’ is not a compliment, especially not when one lives in a democracy. Vladimir Putin, currently Russia’s prime minister, is often called a czar, even though Russia is officially a democracy, because he refuses to play by liberal democratic rules in practice and because he does whatever he wants to do, regardless of what his own people or other countries think about it.
If Obama wants to give people the impression that he will be all about big government and will take a “we decide what’s best” approach to governing, ‘czar’ seems a fitting title for some of his cabinet members and others. If he, however, considers himself and his team the government of a liberal democracy, however, in which all opinions are respected, he may consider giving said people a different title.
Glad you brought this up, at first, the Obama administration’s use of the term “Czar” to me, was kind of a “cutesy” name for a new apointee for a new position, but as time war on, and the term came up more, I started to feel like you, uneasy about the use of the term, made me call into question why this word specifically was being used. It gives me the same impression as you indicated, that he will be all about big government and will take a govern “we decide what’s best” approach to governing. Perhaps the Obama administration should address this, as most likely we are not the only 2 that feel this way.
He likes Russia… Perhaps at some point he thought “I need to recruit some Premiers to lead my administration— wait a second, premier might bring about more ‘communism criticism’, I better just call them ‘czars’ .”
maybe this isn’t so bad after all… found this (reference to “Drug Czar”, this particular used has been around since the 80s) although it really doesn’t ring much of a bell with me. Though the use of the word Czar has been around for a while in US poilitics I have to say that it is being used quite a bit by the Obama folks..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_czar
You use it once or you use it for every single position; it tells us something about your approach to governance – and also about your approach to specific issues.
Yeah, I tend to agree with you there MVDG
Yeah, what’s with this pesky, troublesome Obama character anyhow? Calling political appointees “Csars” who ever heard of such foolishness?
Everyone knows calling Ed Meese… Reagan’s “Morality Czar”; AND John P. Walters… Reagan’s “Drug Czar” AND William Simon… Nixon’s “Energy Czar” AND William Bennett… Bush Sr’s “Energy Czar” was an altogether different situation. They were all good Republicans so it couldn’t be the same.
I’m wondering when the term came about an exactly why it was chosen and why it stuck…
velda, Here’s a Slate article that takes a overview of the term and it’s transformation.
Czar Wars: How did a term for Russian royalty work its way into American government? By Ben Zimmer
@Steve Krome
Saw that right after I’d posted. I noticed it says most presidents have eschewed the term. And at the bottom it says that the Obama team doesn’t like ‘czar’ either and links to another blog that states “apparently the transition folks don’t like that word” but they don’t cite anything. Also that was written on the 29th; has Obama embraced the term since then or is it still mainly being thrown around by newsies?
its being used to get the public used to the terms, and then as time goes on, slowly start changing our democracy into a socialism right under our feet and disguising it as “change”.