Jailing citizens without trial or due process; detaining and even kidnapping foreign nationals and holding them in secret prisons somewhere in Eastern Europe; utilizing abusive methods of interrogation; unfettered eavesdropping on communications of citizens. It seems only yesterday that, as a country, we were united in our wholehearted condemnation of such governmental abuse in totalitarian nations such as the old Soviet Union. Yet here we are at the end of 2005 learning more and more about how our own government has engaged in these appalling acts - in the name of “national security”.
That the Bush administration has engaged in outrageous behavior comes as little surprise. After all it was clear from the outset that this was an authoritarian-minded administration with an expansive view of the powers of the executive. It has fully and thus far, successfully, exploited the fear and insecurity of the American people and the inertia of a compliant Republican-controlled Congress to do almost anything it wanted with little interference or oversight.
It is perplexing, however, that right-wing pundits and other Bush apologists who loudly (and with admirable hyperbole) credit Ronald Reagan with the demise of the Soviet Union, now defend an administration which has adopted many of the very tactics of our Cold War foe. What happened to “give me liberty or give me death”? Consigned, it would seem, to the same ideological dustbin as other conservative principles such as small government and fiscal rectitude. So much of what we normally associate with genuine conservatism has been trashed by this administration; it’s difficult to keep up with it all.
Still, this should be an issue around which both liberals and conservatives can rally. After all, nobody is suggesting that the government should be denied the tools required to identify potential terrorists in our midst; merely that, when it comes to monitoring private communications, their actions must be subject to judicial review. This administration may pay only lip service to the notion of checks and balances, but the rest of us must not meekly acquiesce. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides more than sufficient latitude to government agencies to act quickly. If the administration believes otherwise, it must bring the issue up with Congress and not assume that it has unchecked authority to do as it pleases.
All of which brings me to my final question. Why does the Bush administration persist in trying with all its might to hand the al-Qaida terrorists a victory they do not deserve? The atrocity committed on September 11th was just that and only the most twisted of minds could characterize it a triumph. However, if we continue to succumb to fear by weakening our democracy, as this administration would have us do, surely that grants the terrorists a victory of which they could scarcely have dreamed.
Recognizing your question is rhetorical and I am dog-tired, I still feel compelled tonight to answer: “The people get what they demand *and* what they deserve”.
I get the feeling that many of us altruistically and naively believe (or have believed) that our government is a “band” while bush and the bu-shites are busy exercising its power as a “business”. This business serves them and, in so doing, the entitled and vested they, in turn, serve. As Toby Keith sings in the background, they have single-handedly (enabled by willing congressional and judicial branches) dismantled our republic, soiled our ability to lead “from higher groundâ€? and otherwise reduced us to one of “the league of ordinary nations” (Bartlet, of course). Infuriating.
If you just sit there with your jaw dropped at what they do you are not going to develop and antidote for the poison. So what do we do? My current (glass half full) premise is that bush has violated everyone’s values – save the evangelicals, of course - to the extent that more people will be incentivised to purge him. The bad Republicans may have finally been so blatenly unethical that, no matter who you are, you will be driven to take responsibility for defending your beliefs because you feel violated.
In my opinion, the inexcusable and illegal assault on Constitution and Bill of Rights in the name of “securityâ€? are as much designed as a smoke screen/diversion as they are an enabling tool. Again, the irony is that *everyone* should be offended. This is especially true of the Republicans themselves who have been tainted beyond repair because they have enabled and allowed bush to install the most un-Republican of institutions on their watch: an omni-powerful, out-of-control central government. All done just to “win” (in name only). Was Clinton really that bad that you would prostitute yourself this badly?
Hopeless? Maybe. But we don’t have a snowballs chance unless:
1) True conservatives take back their party, oust those with non-secular agendas and assume the role of defender of the Constitution and “everyman” that their party became in the time of Lincoln
2) Liberals stop depending on the masses somehow becoming appalled at the administration and rise up in defiance (don’t you get it? them people ain’t so smart). It is time they strike out to re-engage our country with the rest of the world, take responsiblity and lead by example (no more blowjobs in office you dumbasses)
3) The truly religious demand that their churches and church leaders abandon the current political crusade, absolve themselves of earthly institutions and work for the greater good of all people under god.
4) The secular demand that the sanctity and power of the Bill of Rights and the separation of church and state is assured and that morality not be allowed to be legislated
And even then, it will be a very long road back.
While there is hope that many in Kansas and the rest of the red-state masses may finally have been awakened by the epidemic of lies and deceit (much more important than “freedom” to them) of this president and Republican (yes and, to a lesser extent, Democratic) congress, I can scarcely imagine the time when our leadership (and our country) will return to a benevolent, tolerant and visionary institution it once aspired to be. Our letting it go this far hardly argues that we deserve it.