Resist Unconstitutional, Unrepresentitive Government
In the post below this one I have admonished the Democratic Party as not being much of a party. I think the same is true of the Republicans. The problem to me is the Democrats have abandoned the Progressives and liberals and the Republicans have abandoned the Conservatives.
I know many of us have said for quite some time that the people in power are not conservatives. This article from Salon is the absolute best I have seen on the topic in some time. So elegantly put that it should absolutely be read in full context. It is rather long (2 web pages) but well worth the time. It's Here. For those that never click here is a condensed version:
Bush's presidency has made a shambles of real conservatism. Let's leave aside the issues on which liberals and conservatives can be expected to disagree, like his tax cuts for the rich, expansion of Medicare or his position on immigration, and focus solely on ones that should be above partisan rancor -- ones involving the Constitution and all-American values. On issue after Mom-and-apple-pie issue, from authorizing torture to approving illegal wiretapping to launching a self-destructive war, Bush has done incalculable damage to conservative principles -- far more, in fact, than any recent Democratic president. And he has been supported every step of the way by Republicans in Congress, who have voted in lockstep for his radical policies. None of the major Republican candidates running for office have repudiated any of Bush's policies. They simply promise to execute them better.
......How did the party of Lincoln end up marching under the banner of Tom DeLay and Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Ann Coulter?
...........the moral impulse of conservatism has from the outset been caught in a welter of self-contradiction. When the Judeo-Christian injunction to help the less fortunate collides with the "I've got mine, Jack" ethos of Ayn Rand individualism, selfishness inevitably triumphs. Crony capitalism, corruption and unchecked greed have been the inevitable result. As a result, conservative morality in practice has been squeezed into an ever smaller, ever more theocentric core. The fact that the Christian right claims to stand at the pinnacle of American virtue is grotesque, but it's the logical consequence of the shriveling of conservative morality.
........If it happened under Bush, Iran-Contra wouldn't even make Page A-18. Reagan covertly funded a guerrilla operation in an inconsequential Central American country. Bush covertly and duplicitously laid the groundwork for one of the longest and most expensive wars in American history. Bush declared that habeas corpus, a magnificent cornerstone of Western law, did not apply to those he designated, without judicial review, "enemy combatants." He claimed the right to lock those individuals up forever, without allowing them to bring their case before a jury. He made torture official U.S. policy, and was directly responsible for the American-run torture factory at Abu Ghraib. His approval of warrantless wiretapping constitutes perhaps the most serious frontal attack on the right of privacy enshrined in the Fourth Amendment in American history. He has made unprecedented use of "signing statements" to disobey laws he disagrees with, marginalizing Congress in the process. His radical theory of the "unitary executive" runs roughshod over the balance-of-powers doctrine that has guided American governance since the Founders.
........These Bush policies all represent a direct assault on the U.S. Constitution, long-established legal and political traditions, and accepted American values -- in short, on the heart and soul of American civic life. If American conservatism will not take its stand in defense of these things, what will it take a stand for? The answer, sadly, is nothing -- or rather, nothing except power. But power devoid of moral content is precisely what genuine conservatism should reject.
.......The fact that conservatives have given Bush a pass on his disastrous Iraq war, and on the radical domestic policies that have accompanied it, indicates that the shelf life of the toxic right-wing mythologies that led to McCarthyism has not expired -- even though the dusty vials containing those myths are now almost 50 years old. ......By attacking Iraq, Bush made up for all those decades of compromise and weakness, all that Neville Chamberlain-like appeasement, that groveling accommodation with evil. This time, we're nuking the bastards! .....In the age of Bush, even the conservatives' much-vaunted moral clarity does not always bear close inspection. A Pew poll taken in March found that only 18 percent of self-described conservative Republicans believed that torture was never justified. Who was it who said, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all ... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good"? It must be one of those damn liberals.*
.......Party loyalty is based on a willingness to support even a flawed leader and party in the interests of a higher goal. But there can be times when that leader and party are so injurious to one's deepest moral values and beliefs that it becomes irrelevant what banner they march under. At such moments, those who think for themselves, who are guided by principle and not mere expediency, who are true conservatives -- or liberals -- and not just partisan hacks, will break with their leaders. They will rebel.
Precisely...One of the best things I have heard in some time is that in many other countries it is the government who is afraid of the people and not the people afraid of the government.
The fact is if you are guided by principles I see no way you could be happy with either party now. I am not sure whose principles are guiding the party these days. I think it is the corporatocracy but that is admittedly me from the perspective of populism. What ever principles are guiding our leaders today we should all be rebelling. It's time to claim our country again. Regardless of party, Be the resistance, make them represent YOU.
The fact is if you are guided by principles I see no way you could be happy with either party now. I am not sure whose principles are guiding the party these days. I think it is the corporatocracy but that is admittedly me from the perspective of populism. What ever principles are guiding our leaders today we should all be rebelling. It's time to claim our country again. Regardless of party, Be the resistance, make them represent YOU.
Not terrorists or nearly any other thing you could mention could make me fear for the future of The United States as this.
posted by Ron at 2:02 PM
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