is the title of this op ed by Jonathan Turley in today's Washington Post, which is a must read.
I urge everyone to read it and pass it on and then scream bloody hell.
Here are his ten reasons, each of which is backed up with detail, as I will illustrate with only one.
Assassination of U.S. citizens
Indefinite detention
Arbitrary justice:
The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)
Warrantless searches
Secret evidence
War crimes
Secret court
Immunity from judicial review
Continual monitoring of citizens
Extraordinary renditions
Please keep reading
On many of these issues, Turley places them in context by comparing us with other countries that do similar things, such as those thriving democracies of China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.
It is an unfortunate continuation and in some cases deepening of the practices of the immediate past administration of George W. Bush, against which so many of us complained so vociferously and is one reason so many of us worked so hard for Obama, fearing what we might get under McCain, and as some argue we might get under Romney.
Some argue that they trust Obama, and may even point to the recent signing statement. But the laws and procedures remain in place, this administration's track record on civil liberties has been far from sterling, and a subsequent President, whether Romney or someone further down the line, can point to legal authority on the books, supported and in some cases used by the Obama administration.
It gets worse:
These new laws have come with an infusion of money into an expanded security system on the state and federal levels, including more public surveillance cameras, tens of thousands of security personnel and a massive expansion of a terrorist-chasing bureaucracy.
Bureaucracies once established are hard to abolish - they seem to find other justifications for their continued existence, and people we complain about the jobs that would be lost.
Turley writes
Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.
But that would be a government dependent upon men and not upon laws. I remember a discussion with my students back when the NSA wiretapping of electronic communications was revealed. One student, who has long since repented his ways (he voted for Obama), BG, said that he trusted George Bush with the power. I asked who among the Democrats he most hated or feared, and he practically spit out the name Hillary Clinton. I asked how we would feel about giving her that power. Although practically an albino, you could visibly see the blood drain from BG's face. I made the point that it is not about the person, but the power of the office that is the question, and that power must be something you are willing to grant to the politicians you least like or trust.
In fairness, the Founders left the office of President a bit undefined, because they had little experience with a strong executive, except for the abuses of the King against whom they had revolted in 1776 - see the list of grievances in the Declaration. Yet in writing the Constitution they all knew Washington would be the first occupant of the office of President, and to some degree they trusted him to define the powers of the office: after all, he had cut off the efforts of his officers to declare him king and themselve nobles, so they had to settle for establishing the Society of Cincinnati.
Turley points out that while Obama had said he would veto the defense authorization bill over the provision of indefinite detention, Senator Carl Levin has remarked that it was the White House that approed the removal of the exemption for American citizens.
Which brings us to Turley's final words, to which I strongly suggest you pay close attention:
Dishonesty from politicians is nothing new for Americans. The real question is whether we are lying to ourselves when we call this country the land of the free.
When this is NOT a major issue in our political discourse, I worry that we have betrayed the words of Franklin, because we have no longer kept the Republic.
I teach government. And I have to agree with Turley's final sentence:
The real question is whether we are lying to ourselves when we call this country the land of the free.
Have a nice day????