An Elected Dictator
Posted by
Kevin
That is what the GOP thinks the President really is:
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.
The notion that the President can ignore any law, break any treaty, abandon any restraint as long as he claims he is doing it in the name of national defense is repugnant to the conscience of any decent person and completely at odds with the foundational principles of democracy, liberty and our government. Defending this marks one as the most servile of men, so far gone in fear and hatred and the need for an illusionary father-figure to protect you from the dangers of the world as to render your opinion on how to handle anything more dangerous than a housefly meaningless. Alternately, I suppose you could just be a monster, a person who so revels in the notion of causing others pain that he would throw away three centuries of hard-earned wisdom about the nature of governments and power and freedom to ensure that he could go to bed a night assured that someone was being tortured on his his behalf somewhere.
And save your pixels if you wish to inform me that I am being mean or contemptuous. I am being mean and contemptuous. Contempt is the least of what is owed people who order such practices and people who defend such practices. One of the clearest lessons of history is that unchecked, unsupervised, unaccountable power is the death of individual liberty and personal freedom. Our Revolution was fought over the exercise of just such unchecked powers and our constitution was specifically designed to prevent anyone from accruing unchecked powers under any circumstances. But the Bush Administration and its disgusting little toadies like John Yoo are perfectly content to throw away all of that accumulated wisdom and the modern conservative movement is perfectly willing to defend them. Why, Dear God, am I supposed to treat this frontal assault on the core principles of democracy with respect?
These people have declared war on the very underpinnings of freedom and democracy. They have advocated a legal regime that would have made George III and Pinochet nod their heads in approval. They argue that a President can do anything he wants to anyone one he wants anywhere in the world he wants as long as he says the magic words “national security” first. They want to elevate the President to a kind of elected dictator and give him powers that would make a 17th century European Monarch giggle with glee. When I call these people servile, disgusting, and enemies of justice, morality, decency and democracy I am not insulting them. I am describing them.
