Worldview Blog

Our Constitution is Threatened
22 December 2007

For some time now, there has been a whole slew of reporting on the danger that the Bush administration is presenting to the Constitution and to the Rule of Law. It's not just liberals and the civil rights people at the ACLU. A great many thinking conservatives and libertarians, from Bruce Fein to John Dean to Bob Barr to countless others have become concerned about a swelling imperial presidency and brazen disregard for the law. One particularly good book is Takeover by Charlie Savage. At first, I tended to dismiss these claims as alarmist, but the more I read by highly knowledgeable people, including lawyers and constitutional scholars, the more I am worried. A good wide-ranging recap can be found in this radio interview between Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio and the other Scott Horton who writes for Harper's:

SCOTT HORTON INTERVIEWS SCOTT HORTON
Scott Horton, Antiwar Radio, 21 December 2007

I will come back later and list some of the charges. For the moment, let me note that waterboarding is indeed severe torture, and that there is evidence that the administration has broken the law in an indisputable way, or has used its executive assets to bully and intimidate American citizens, including a governor. Spying without a warrant is no small matter, nor is the language in the PATRIOT act allowing the president to declare any citizen an 'enemy combatant' and to lock him up for three years without bringing charges (if I remember correctly). And there's much more...

Paul Craig Roberts: We Are All Prisoners Now

Bruce Fein: Police in thought pursuit

Ian Kershaw: How democracy produced a monster called Hitler

Arthur Silber: No One Is Safe: The Ruling Class Unleashed

Many more links should go here! Try these.

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