Mighty ‘Merican Mental Midgets

09/08/07 “ICH” — – The overwhelming majority of the American people are not breaking any laws.

We cannot say that about the government.

It looks increasingly hypocritical when the government insists that it must break the law in order to save us. It’s become the government’s mantra that it cannot protect us unless it breaks the law at will, without oversight, and without our knowledge or consent. It’s been openly stated that unless our basic rights are fully yielded to the government, further terrorist attacks will come, and because of our failure to yield what literally defines us, those attacks will be our own fault.

The implications of this illogic are chilling. Our reticence to allow the government to break the law at will makes us complicit with terrorists.

As revolting a notion as that is, and as obviously untrue as it is, nevertheless, Congress has systematically passed laws forcing us to lie down and take it, in the name of security.

Several of the amendments to the constitution, our basic inalienable rights, have been thoroughly and systematically undermined due to government urging and incessant claims that they need our rights in order to do their jobs.

Every shred of our privacy has become a thing of the past, as we now know that every electronic communication in this country is collected, scanned and archived even though it is patently illegal and clearly unjustified. A real time national surveillance grid is being established and interconnected with every possible government and private interest that can utilize our most personal information against us, or for it’s own benefit and profit. This is further darkened by the concerted efforts of government to refuse to allow us the ability to look into these situations, much less reject them.

The sweeping banner of national security is always unfurled when we are alarmed by bizarre government activity, and seems to be all it takes to prevent the people from obtaining the truths we need to be able to discern whether government activity is warranted. The people need to know whether what the government is doing is in our own best interest or not. That can never become something that is too much to ask. To the extent that it has, we have been seriously diminished, undermined and disempowered.

Why is the focus of government activity regarding national security so widespread when they obviously need to be focused only where needed? Why look at 100% of the grid when only a small fraction of it is of actual pertinence to their efforts to provide security to the nation? Not only does this spread their efforts incredibly thin, it wastes time and energy and man-hours, and it dilutes whatever successful outcomes this unprecedented microscopic surveillance could ostensibly turn up.

Why are they making their own jobs so much harder and so much less successful by looking in all of the places that will never bear fruit?

It’s time to ask for clarification of the term ‘national security’. Exactly what do they mean when they say those words? Because we as a nation have never felt less secure, in fact we have never been less secure than we are right now.

It’s really no wonder that there’s been little in the way of turning up actual terrorists in our own country. There are simple facts like, there aren’t many terrorists here to begin with, if any. As of yet, all these years after 9-11, not a single credible terrorist has been discovered and taken out of operation. No one has been held accountable for 9-11 and of course, the infamous Osama Bin Laden, an intelligence operative, has vanished into thin air, and is all but forgotten. He seems only to turn up at those times when his prerecorded threats against us seem to serve the government’s will to a “T”, supporting their assertions and plans, providing justification for the continuing need for their uncomfortable way of doing things.

Why does the government suddenly find our rule of law so inconvenient? It seems to severely burden the highest office in the land to be confined to operating inside of the law. What is the law for then if it is not good enough for the government to believe in? Why have laws at all? Again, the hypocrisy is unsettling. It is the president’s responsibility to uphold the law, yet it’s now a situation where he decides the law, rejecting and redefining it at will. As no one in America is above the law, at what point does the president deem himself beyond it’s confines? More importantly, why would he want to?

Why would our president find the law to be so repellent? Does he not believe in the value of the rule of law? The questions are left to answer themselves. The government no longer feels compelled to answer to us.

We have seen abuses of citizens here and of hundreds of private individuals abroad who have been arrested and imprisoned without charges being filed. Certainly if there is sufficient cause to deprive someone of their freedom, there could be no problem filing charges at the time of their arrest. An arrest can only come because of specific charges. It remains seriously difficult to understand why charges are not filed, and those imprisonments continue for years. The right to know what one is being charged with, the right to defend oneself and call witnesses and provide exonerating evidence, even the right to a lawyer, a phone call, or to contact one’s family, all of these rights have been stricken, and are bitterly fought against by the very government charged with upholding these very laws.

One is left to conclude there are no charges to be made against these arrestees, and what follows is that the reasons for those arrests don’t truly exist. Why the arrests then? Why the torture? Why the refusal to provide the legal protections that define our beliefs?

All of it is wholly frightening and valid reason to worry.

The bill of rights defines our values. We don’t look at those rights as something unusual or optional or arbitrarily reserved for ourselves. On the contrary, we believe our bill of rights represents what we deeply believe is right, not just for ourselves but for everyone on this earth. That is why anyone who comes here is entitled to the same legal protections that we are. We believe this is the right thing to do for everyone.

For that reason one is deeply concerned when our president, attorney general, and our military heads feel compelled to deprive people of the rights we live by, on the grounds that people in other countries are not us. Or, that people anywhere who they deem to be suspect, without evidence to support that assertion, should immediately be deprived of due process. This is exactly the time and reason for due process. These are not grounds to mistreat anyone. If our government believed in our principles would they not take our principles with them everywhere they went on the planet? Would they not uphold them here at home? It seems outsourcing is confined only to our jobs and futures, not our human values. What a shame. What an inconceivable, perplexing shame.

I am no longer sure of what our government stands for. It seems completely opposed to everything we treasure most. It lusts for wars of aggression, it dismisses our laws, it disrespects our rights and contends they keep them from doing their jobs. They use the law against us, to tie our hands and keep us from knowing what they’re doing, and worse, to prevent us from stopping them from doing things we abhor.

The endless string of abuses of law and human rights, the invasions of our privacy, the heavy handed treatment of law abiding people at airports and by police, the exorbitant costs of their visions and philosophies, their refusal to consider the people while granting corporations every accommodation and benefit, the dollar in it’s death throws, the perversions exposed in official after official, all combine to paint an obvious picture. These are not people who deserve to be trusted. These are not people who have our security in mind. These are not people we should hand the reigns of the nation to as they are driving us directly to our own demise.

Why is our Congress complicit in allowing this? Where is the belief that our nation is good, and the recollection that the people are paying for everything, and the knowledge that we don’t want the country to be changed into a fascist dictatorship? We don’t want to be bankrupt and jobless and homeless and hopeless. Does that really need to be said? Is that not self evident to our elected representatives?

When we have to make a case for justice, freedom, prosperity, privacy, human rights and peace, then we have lost them already.

When we are forced to beg for what supposedly defines us and keep hearing those requests denied for our own “security”, we must face the reality that everything we once had is gone, and is not coming back.

Government has separated itself from us. It has abandoned the people and now seeks only to exert unlimited control over us, and to do with us as it will. Just as it can dismiss the law, it has dismissed the notion of the people being of consequence. This country has become their own property to do with as they choose, and we seem only to be standing in their way, along with our rights and the laws we once had that protected us.

Does anyone really believe that we willingly gave it all away believing it would make us safe? The painful truth of it is, that’s exactly what we did. It could not be any more clear. Americans are the stupidest people on earth.