Obama has gone further than even Bush dared to go in eliminating your rights. Obama is to the authoritarian right of Antonin Scalia.
But don't talk about it or you might be next on the hit list.
Why the hell not? It's not just foreign born World Trade Center mass murderers we now target for assassination in violation of Article 23b of the Hague Convention of 1899 or the more modern Executive Orders 11905, 12036 or 12333, it's now American born citizens who are targeted for assassination by Judge, Jury & Executioner in Chief Barrack Obama.
Yesterday, the Obama administration threw the foundation of all civil rights out the window and attempted to assassinate American-born, U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. With a name like that, it's probably OK though, huh?
4th Amendment? Who needs it.
Habeas Corpus? How good can anything 800 years old be?
Presumption of innocence? Right to a trial? Geez Louise, what a bunch of whiners--we don't need that.
Assassination? Cool!
You have no rights anymore. If one of us can be targeted for execution, it can be done to any of us. Even Antonin-ever-loving-Scalia recognized assassination of citizens as a line that must not be crossed.
The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive. Blackstone stated this principle clearly: "Of great importance to the public is the preservation of this personal liberty: for if once it were left in the power of any, the highest, magistrate to imprison arbitrarily whomever he or his officers thought proper … there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities. … To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom." . . . .
Subjects accused of levying war against the King were routinely prosecuted for treason. . . . The Founders inherited the understanding that a citizen's levying war against the Government was to be punished criminally. The Constitution provides: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort"; and establishes a heightened proof requirement (two witnesses) in order to "convic[t]" of that offense. Art. III, §3, cl. 1.
If you can be kidnapped by the state, if you can be murdered by the state, you have no rights. You have only the privileges the state deigns to allow you to exercise.
American Exceptionalism? Not anymore. We're just like any other fascist dictatorship. Feeding the corporations and killing (both literally and figuratively) the citizens.
America was Exceptional. It bent the arc of human history in an entirely new direction. All of history prior to the USA was the story of shamans, warlords and kings. It was the story of centralizing power. Then, along came our founding fathers who said that government power came from the people and that the purpose of government was to secure our innate rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Power was devolved to the people. We tied the government down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution and we regulated businesses to prevent concentrations of power that could be dangerous to the liberty of the people.
We've now come full circle. We have voted our masters into power. They have stripped us of our rights. Bush started it and Barack Obama accelerated and cemented the theft of our rights.
As we move into the 2012 election cycle, here are the questions I want asked of every candidate:
Over the Bush and Obama administrations, new powers have been claimed by the executive branch and liberties of the people have been stripped away.
1) Which powers will you give up?
2) What rights will you restore to the people?
Updated by Mosquito Pilot at Sat May 07, 2011 at 06:05 PM CDT
How odd. I've been here long enough that I was tipped and rec'ed for calling out abuses of power in the Bush administration.
Obama abuses his authority, and I call it out, and I get my 2nd through 17th HR.
I am not anti-Obama. This is not about the man. It's the abuse of power and the violation of law that concerns me.
Peace.