Sunday, February 11, 2007
Fear or Freedom? The Rule of Law or the Law of the Jungle?
http://isbushantichrist.blogspot.com/The Constitution, Article II, Section 4: ”The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
By leading our nation into a war based upon lies, Bush has committed the most grievous act of treason in our nation's history. By conspiring with oil companies and others commercial interests to trade American blood for corporate dollars, he has engaged in the most demonic form of calculated bribery since Judas sold out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. And by constructing illegal prisons, conducting illegal torture, illegally tapping our phones, illegally reading our private mail, issuing un-Constitutional signing statements, outing CIA agents, suspending habeas corpus, and committing countless other high crimes and misdemeanors, he has literally turned the executive branch of our government into a criminal enterprise, and turned America into a police state.
The first and most urgent reason to remove these criminals from office is simply to restore the rule of law. Our founders recognized how it was of paramount importance to preserve the rule of law which this regime has worked so mightily to break down and destroy – to preserve that sacred principal that no man, no woman, no president, and no vice president is above the law. It is absolutely necessary to remove them from office in order to save our country. We cannot have both. If they only had two more weeks to serve, it would be all the more urgent that they be impeached and tried for their crimes. We cannot allow one man or a conspiracy of men in high office to systematically break down the rule of law, and still be protected by the rule of law ourselves. We MUST either try, convict, and punish all those who break the law – regardless of how rich and powerful they are - or learn to live with the fact that the law really doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Then we no longer have the rule of law, but the law of the jungle, where the rich and powerful are allowed to kill, rob, torture, and enslave whomever they please, just because they are richer and more powerful than anybody else. A civilized society can only be maintained by bringing the richest and most powerful criminals to justice, and making them accountable to the law. Because some of them will always do everything they can to revert to the law of the jungle, where they see themselves as kings, completely above the law.
The founders of our nation - who knew what it was like to live under the thumb of a king and tyrant - understood better than most Americans today that to protect ourselves from would-be kings, we MUST impeach and punnish all those who would act like kings. Otherwise, we are no longer a democratic republic. We may be a monarchy, a dictatorship, a theocracy, or a corporate oligarchy – but without the rule of law we are no longer a democratic republic.
The central political battle in the United States from its inception has always been between those who would like to break down the rule of law and revert to some form of monarchy - where a privileged few are ruling over everyone else though fear - and those defending the rule of law, our basic human rights, and our democratic institutions. What Bush is now doing by breaking down the rule of law can only be understood in the context of what Republicans have been doing to our country for at least for the past 40 years.
It was Nixon who broke the law and covered-up a burglary committed by his operatives, as well as committing other assorted crimes while in office. For this, he ought to have been impeached, removed from office, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But instead he resigned, and was then foolishly pardoned. Even though he broke the law, he was never tried and convicted for all his crimes, and a bad precedent was set (and one that criminals like Dick Cheney revel in today). It signaled to everyone that future presidents could break the law as much as they wanted, and at worst they must resign if they’re caught, though only if their party doesn’t control Congress. The critical safeguard in the Constitution that was wisely laid down to protect the rule of law was never properly used. Consequently, the rule of law suffered, while the law of the jungle and right of kings gained a critical foothold in the highest office in the land.
Then along came Reagan, another would-be king. He systematically broke the law by secretly selling arms to Iran, and using the illegal proceeds to fund an undeclared war in Nicaragua – when Congress had already passed a law specifically saying this was illegal. Yet once again, instead of impeaching Reagan and removing him from office, and then convicting him of his flagrant felonies committed while in office, Reagan pleaded ignorance (or senility), and a foolish Democratic Congress decided not to hold him responsible, because they were already thinking about the next election, and didn’t want to divide the nation. Just like today, the Democrats were more concerned about the short-term politics of impeachment, than the long-term effect of neglecting their duty to preserve the rule of law.
Eventually, even those who were later convicted of crimes involving Iran/Contra, were later pardoned by George H W Bush. Consequently, many of the same people who got away with their crimes 20 years ago, are now working for Bush II and committing even greater felonies today. Though Reagan’s crimes were even worse than Nixon’s, and he succeeded in breaking down the rule of law even more, he and his co-conspirators never suffered any consequences. If they had, we would not be where we are today.
So after doing so much to break down the rule of law while still getting away with it, the Republicans became encouraged like a drunkard on a binge, and they continued to even further break down respect for the law by mocking the Constitution and impeaching a president who lied about a sexual affair. They demonstrated how it really doesn’t matter what you’ve done, whether your private life should remain private, or whether you’ve really committed any crime at all. Because those who hate the rule of law and love the rule of kings and dictators, will always abuse their power by invading your privacy, investigating you incessantly, and bringing you up on trumped-up charges– much as in any other police state. A police state is the opposite of the rule of law – it’s the rule of a dictator's will or a political ideology rather than the law. A police state is the natural extension of the law of the jungle. It was their own radical ideology Republicans were trying to impose on America by impeaching Clinton – not the rule of law.
Since the Democrats had failed to use impeachment to protect the rule of law, Republicans were prepared to use the law and the power of impeachment for purely political ends, and in doing so they once again made a mockery of the law and the Constitution. The rule of law is damaged not only by letting the real criminals go unpunished, but by using the law to make criminals out of people who really aren’t criminals, for purely political purposes. That’s why the impeachment of Clinton did even greater damage to the rule of law than all the crimes of Nixon and Reagan had done previously. Because it demonstrated that Republicans had already crossed that line in their own minds between a third-rate burglary and a police state.
The next inevitable step came when they overthrew the Constitution, the will of the voters, and the presidential election in 2000, in order to install their own hereditary king. Bush has never been a lawfully elected president – he has ALWAYS been a king and tyrant who came to power in bloodless coup. So why would anybody expect a king to uphold the rule of law, when kings have always considered themselves above the law?
In the minds of many Republicans today, the only laws that matter are the ones that can be twisted to fit their political agenda – or fit into their twisted definition of national security. It’s a fascist mindset that was already conditioned by the systematic breakdown of the fair and equal protection of the law. That’s where we are today. It’s important to understand that what we are witnessing today in the complete breakdown in the rule of law at the hand of certain criminals in the White House, didn’t happen overnight, or even over the last seven years. It’s the result of a lawless fascist mentality that has been allowed to fester and grow in this country over the last 40 years. It’s the mentality that assumes all our laws and basic human rights are completely expendable, because they were never as important as their own extremist agenda.
As Americans, we have all been affected to some degree, by this same encroaching fascist mindset. The never-ending lies and criminal activities of Bush/Cheney could not even have been imagined 20 years ago. We have all changed and been conditioned to accept this growing atmosphere of deceit, fear and lawlessness. It’s the end result of a systematic trampling down of the rule of law for the sake of profit and political advantage. And unless we stop it now – or at least take the first step in stopping it by impeaching and imprisoning Bush/Cheney for their crimes – it’s not likely we will have another chance.
Most Americans don’t seem to realize how fragile civilization really is, and how much humanity has struggled to establish the rule of law, and how long we have fought and sacrificed for the idea that every person was created equal under the law. Yet the law of the jungle and the tyranny of kings and dictators are never far away. Maintaining a civilized society is largely a matter of how we think, feel and behave towards each other – and primarily in our willingness to defend and uphold justice and the rule of law, and the proposition that ‘all people are created equal’ under the law.
The more some (rich and powerful) people get the idea the law no longer matters – that our laws are just something they can manipulate to keep everyone else scared and in their place - we are no longer a democratic country. Then we’ve become a police state. When a president presumes to break whatever laws he chooses – we are no longer a free nation, and our basic human rights are no longer guaranteed. When illegal wars and shameful torture are being committed in our name – we are no longer a civilized people. We may be a very affluent and technologically advanced nation – but we are only barbarians in business suits.
Impeaching Bush/Cheney might demonstrate to the rest of the world (and to ourselves) that we are, or could be a civilized country again. Most of the world believes – justifiably – that America has been corrupted by power, and devolved into a nation of arrogant barbarians. What many Americans interpret as the envy of other nations is really the growing fear and disgust among more civilized people around the world, when confronted by the specter of powerful barbarians with no respect for international laws, and loaded down with thousands of nukes.
When Bush declared America’s right of pre-emption and invaded Iraq, he was claiming the ancient right of kings and powerful empires to tyrannize over weaker nations, and the natural right of the rich to tyrannize over the poor (including the right to slaughter 655,000 poor Iraqis to make a few wealthy Americans much richer). The same rule of law he had successfully broken down to gain the power of commander-in-chief, and which he continues to break down while in office, he was also determined to break down on a much broader international scale. Just as St. Paul once wrote about "the lawless one" and "the mystery of lawlessness already at work", we can see it plainly working in the arrogant lawlessness of his regime. (2thes 2:3-12) The history books may one day record that America’s 200 year experiment with freedom and democracy finally ended at Abu Ghraib.
America has become an arrogant, lawless, and uncivilized country, and most of the world now looks at the United States as the greatest threat to peace and stability throughout the world. Why? Because the rule of law no longer really exists in America – except as a means of locking up the poor and keeping them in their place. At the same time Bush has put himself completely above the law, we have a larger percentage of our population in prison than anywhere else in the world. Is this the evidence of a free and civilized country – or more proof that we have become something else, something more like a police state, where the rich and powerful are completely out of control?
If the laws don’t exist for Bush/Cheney, then the protection of the law no longer exists for anybody in America. Then we have become a nation of barbarians, where the rich and powerful have come to rule over our lives through the instrument of a tyrannical corporate power and influence. And in spite of the corporate media propaganda, over 90% of all stocks and bonds are still owned by the rich and the extremely rich, and their wealth is increasingly shielded from any risk or taxes, while everyone else's livelihood is increasingly insecure, and their lives increasingly ruled by fear. Whether it’s fear of losing your job or health insurance, fear of becoming sick or homeless, fear of going bankrupt or remaining forever in debt, fear of terrorists, fear of crime, and now even the fear of being locked up without any charges, the fear of being tortured, the fear of the government listening into your phone calls or opening your mail or tracking your reading or internet browsing – it no longer matters fear of what, as long as those in power who have put themselves above the law and made their own lives and fortunes much more secure can keep you constantly afraid and in line - because that’s how the law of the jungle works. Instead of being protected by fair and just laws, we are now being ruled by a pervasive fear that is constantly played-up and re-inforced by the corporate media.
When Republicans say freedom, they mean the freedom to pay slave wages, the freedom to take away your health care, freedom to ship your jobs overseas or to replace you with 'temporary workers' who will work for less, the freedom to poison our water and air, the freedom to hate and discriminate, the freedom to invade our privacy, the freedom to shift the tax burden and destroy the middle class, the freedom to tax the wages of workers more than profits of speculators, the freedom to shelter the inheritance of the rich while one out of four children is born into poverty, even the freedom to gouge us at the pump just for fun and record-breaking profits, and basically the freedom of the rich and powerful to control and destroy our lives however they choose. Those are the only freedoms that Republicans now defend and care about, and not our rights, our liberty, our jobs, our health, our dignity, our security, our pursuit of happiness, or something as outdated as the rule of law, or that quaint idea that everyone is equal under the law. They’re only concerned about the right of kings, and about those who are now considered above the law.
We write laws protecting children from child molesters, but all the laws that once protected them and everyone else from the unbridled greed of the rich and powerful have been systematically abolished. The protection of the law has been replaced by the pervasive fear that derives from total corporate control of our govenment and our lives. We have moved from the equal protection of the law to the tyranny of the rich and powerful, and from the government of the people to the tyranny of the corporate boardroom.
America is no longer a free country – America is a very frightened country, and everything Bush has done has been calculated to increase our fear and destroy the rule of law that once protected us from fear by seeking justice and guaranteeing our basic human rights. Which is just fine for wealthy Republicans like Bush, since that was their goal all along, as it has been for at least the last 40 years.
Freedom in the most basic sense means freedom from fear, and the kind of freedom that guarantees our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. But freedom for most Republicans means the freedom of the rich and powerful to instill more fear, to take away our rights, our sense of security, and ultimately to declare an endless war in order to keep everyone afraid forever, and to take away even our lives for the sake of more corporate corruption and profits in Iraq. Like it or not, that’s where we are as a nation right now, and if we don’t start waking up to what has been done to our country, and start protecting justice and the rule of law from those who have systematically broken it down, we will never be a free, secure, and civilized people again. Our security and freedom won’t be won in Iraq – it will only be won once we begin bringing criminals like Bush and Cheney to justice.
posted by R. Stephen Hanchett at 3:32 PM
http://isbushantichrist.blogspot.com/
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