William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
-A Man for All Seasons-
One of the Administrations first proclamations after the attack on New York and Washington by Saudi Islamic Extremists was that we would have to endure some abridgement of our civil rights. The surprising speed with which this statement was made after the earlier lethargy in addressing the warnings of a terrorist attack caused many to recall the 1933 Enabling Act which allowed Germany’s new Chancellor Adolph Hitler to bypass many provisions of the Weimar Constitution. The act was pushed through after the “Terrorist” attack on Germany’s Parliament, the Reichstag, the burning of which Hitler blamed on the Communists. Had Bush been looking for an opening all along?
Of course the quote “Is it time to be checking the sprinklers in the Reichstag?” has been tossed about so much that I am still unable to trace its source, but it was met with accusations of hyperbole and irresponsible excess. Those accusations seem a bit weaker today. The Republican attacks on the courts seem more understandable now that they are not only flirting with the unconstitutional and illegal abuse of power, but have been caught in flagrante delicto.
The Twin Towers have already burned and Bush may not need further conflagrations to continue to set aside the checks and balances that we have relied on to stabilize our Republic. He no longer needs to do anything but chant 9/11 and invoke the “tare-ists” to justify anything he wants to do and one thing he dearly wants to do, like every other tyrant does, is to eliminate criticism.
We are assured that due process is observed and that the Feds are only investigating with probable cause, despite compelling evidence that the surveillance is being used against anyone who might possibly disagree with Bush’s War or perhaps any war as well as those with dubious overseas connections. They no longer can or care to defend the lies but with that last refuge of a scoundrel.
Can we afford to wait until 2008? Will we be able to choose anything not on the Republican menu by then? For our own safety’s sake, can we continue to support this President?
Extra, Extra
CBC news tells us that the group of Yukon high school students who attended a peace demonstration in Alaska last year and were labelled a threat by U.S. Homeland Security have now been downgraded to a non credible threat - whew - I was worried. Aren't you glad we have these people on our side?
4 comments:
good post.
u likely know this goering quote, but here's a url anyway:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm
people who see plots every where can justify anything rite on
The law is there for a reason, after all - who can trust the Government to bend the rules responsibly?
There should be uproar at the way both our countries (the US and the UK) seek to destroy the freedoms and democracies our countries were built on (no, really) to further their own agendas.
There is an uproar, but small compared to what it should be. I think that most people are quite comfortable with tyranny. History would not be so full of it were it not that people gravitated toward tyrannical leaders.
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