Outrage

My Republican conspecifics are not much concerned about the erosion of civil liberties, and their response to expressions of concern is to call me an “alarmist”. At what point will they concede that civil liberties are, in fact, imperiled? When the secret police invade their homes and “disappear” one of their family members? Keith Olbermann remarked last night that the “alarmists” who expressed concern about illegal warrantless eavesdropping now seem “prescient” in light of the administration’s claim to have authority to break into people’s homes without warrants.

I concede that, to my knowledge, I have not as yet been surveilled, had my phones tapped, or had my house broken into. I have not been “disappeared” as of yet. It is nonetheless cause for outrage that the Bush regime claims to have the authority to do all of these things with no accountability to anyone and no check by any other branch of government. That I have not been assaulted, invaded, kidnapped or killed is entirely due to the grace and mercy of the regime and not the civil rights that I grew up to cherish. I have given voluntary allegiance to the United States on the basis that the United States is the guarantor of my civil rights, and now that it clearly does not even recognize such rights, any allegiance that it gets from me is nothing more than acquiescence predicated on coercion.

The regime claims, and Congress and the courts have not gainsaid it, that it may order your murder, kidnap you, detain you, torment you, invade your home, seize your property, listen in on your conversations, read your mail, look at all your records, and do anything it damn well pleases in the name of the War on Terror. That an American President would even want such power renders him unfit for any office of trust. Claiming such power is, in and of itself, a breach of his oath of office to defend the Constitution. The smirking Attorney General who seeks to justify these claims makes a grotesque mockery of his office. The regime has declared itself outlaw.

Where is the outrage? The claim of unconstitutional power should enrage anyone who loves America.