Reply #4: The Death of Our Republic and Our Constitution

[Munger5683]

A Letter to the Editor of my Local Conservative Newspaper

This is what the Republicans and the "Blue Dog" Democrats like Joe Lieberman have brought down on the American people. It is the end of our Republic as we know it. From now on we might as well just say, "We are the "Banana Republic" of the United States!"


Re the following article by Chris Floyd:

Most of the people I know have no concept of how dangerous this situation is. As the author says, “what is safe to do or say today might imperil your freedom or your life tomorrow.” This is the kind of power our idiot Congressional Reps have given to this Imperialistic cabal in the White House. Some of my sister’s friends aren’t worried about this destruction of our Republic, even though thousands of Americans have died to make us free. They feel that they are not in danger because they are good law abiding Republicans. But as the author points out, the law can change from day to day on the whim of this totalitarian Administration, so you’ll never know if you may one day your freedom or your life may be in peril. This is what happened to the people of Hitler’s Germany as they ignored the evil that was going on around them, because they felt that it would never happen to them. As I stated in the last article that I put out, “If I disappear tomorrow because of my activities, that are guaranteed by the Constitution, please come looking for me!” “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.”

"Remember that it is not by a tyrant's words, but only by his deeds that we can know him" ~Dwight David Eisenhower

The article:

Fatal Vision: The Deeper Evil Behind the Detainee Bill

From TruthOut.org
By Chris Floyd, TO UK Correspondent
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 02 October 2006

"There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country - if the people lose their confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and spirit of defiance." - Walt Whitman

It was a dark hour indeed on Thursday when the United States Senate voted to end the constitutional republic and transform the country into a "Leader-State," giving the president and his agents the power to capture torture and imprison forever anyone - American citizens included - whom they arbitrarily decide is an "enemy combatant." This also includes those who merely give "terrorism" some kind of "support," defined so vaguely that many experts say it could encompass legal advice, innocent gifts to charities or even political opposition to US government policy within its draconian strictures.

All of this is bad enough - a sickening and cowardly surrender of liberty not seen in a major Western democracy since the Enabling Act passed by the German Reichstag in March 1933. But it is by no means the full extent of our degradation. In reality, the darkness is deeper, and fouler, than most people imagine. For in addition to the dictatorial powers of seizure and torment given by Congress on Thursday to George W. Bush - powers he had already seized and exercised for five years anyway, even without this fig leaf of sham legality - there is a far more sinister imperial right that Bush has claimed - and used - openly, without any demur or debate from Congress at all: ordering the "extrajudicial killing" of anyone on earth that he and his deputies decide - arbitrarily, without charges, court hearing, formal evidence, or appeal - is an "enemy combatant."

That's right; from the earliest days of the Terror War - September 17, 2001 , to be exact - <b>Bush has claimed the peremptory power of life and death over the entire world.If he says you're an enemy of America , you are. If he wants to imprison you and torture you, he can. And if he decides you should die, he'll kill you. This is not hyperbole, liberal paranoia, or "conspiracy theory": it's simply a fact, reported by the mainstream media, attested by senior administration figures, recorded in official government documents - and boasted about by the president himself, in front of Congress and a national television audience.

Read more: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206A.shtml