This is what tyranny looks like…

I remember the day after George W. Bush opened his illegal, immoral, unprovoked war on Iraq – based on nothing but lies – when an email petition came through advocating that we start impeachment proceedings against him. I knew it was a non-starter, politically speaking, but I thought we should, at the very least, let those evil folks know what we thought of them. So I sent the email on to a few ‘friends’ who were a wee bit more to the right than I… and got back blistering responses of the barking mad variety (the word ‘traitor’ was used). Apparently impeachment was only to be used for blow jobs… one guy I’d known for 20 years threatened to call the cops if I ever emailed him again.

I was surprised then and I have the feeling I’m going to be surprised again…

Something happened today that has so far gone unmentioned in the Directorate of Propaganda (otherwise known as the Mass Media): we have today made a giant step down the road to tyranny.

Today Barack Obama issued a worldwide ‘kill or capture’ order on an American citizen. No indictment has been offered, no court has issued an arrest warrant, no officer of the court or the law was consulted, no military tribunal was invoked, JAG was not asked for an opinion, habeus corpus was not involved. The American citizen who is the subject of the ‘kill or capture’ order was investigated by Barack Obama, indicted by Barack Obama, tried by Barack Obama, convicted by Barack Obama and sentenced to death by Barack Obama… all very neatly and legally (the laws were perverted by BushCo for just this purpose and BO(zo) was happy to use them as such).

Note to the Right Wing Wacko Brigade: this is what happens when you allow abysmally stupid perversions of law in the name of ‘please, please protect us from the terrorists’. This is the real world, wackos, some people out there hate us. It’s time for you to grow some balls and stop trading in our rights for your cowardly macho notions of safety.

Note to the Faux Left Wing Sycophant Brigade: Darth Cheney pushed through this legislation in the GWB Thugocracy, but even Dubya, human stain that he is, couldn’t bring himself to use this particular piece of legal excrement. What does that tell you about “The One”?

Because I suspect that neither set of wackos has the mental acuity to think their collective way out of a paper bag, I’ll spell it out for you;

This is not about fighting terrorism.

This is not about whether Anwar al-Awlaki is a bad man (he is)

This is not even about whether Anwar al-Awlaki is a traitor (probably, but Hint: we need a TRIAL to find out)

This is not about protecting the American way of life (actually it is, just not how you’re thinking)

This is about the most fundamental property of Western Civilization: The Rule of Law (this should be animated and the sound should come from a burning bush and knock your socks off).

The Rule of Law means that no one, repeat NO ONE can KILL you without going through due process. YES, this IS about you. It may seem to be about some nameless fool who just doesn’t understand… no, this one really is about you.

This abomination is not about the people you hate, the gays, the rednecks, the furriners, the rightwingnuts, the haters, the racists… it really, really is about you.

For the brain dead among you, here’s how it works: we start out as apes, savages really, and we dance about beating our chests and howling insults at everyone else around us. This of course leads to real fighting and, in the grand scheme of things, the biggest, baddest, nastiest bastard wins. This goes on for a very long time. Eventually, the rest of the tribe gets a bit sick of it and they start casting about for another, any other, solution. Eventually (and you’ll have to go back to your civics classes for this, if you had any) the apes figure out that they have to have a set of rules that applies to EVERYONE or it doesn’t really mean anything.

This is called “The Rule of Law”, it is the basis of western civilization. It means that no man, or woman, can make a decision, all by themselves, about what is right or wrong – they have to refer to the law to decide that. The law being the set of rules everyone in the society agrees on.

Are you beginning to see what I mean? Does the enormity of the crime start to become apparent to you?

Just in case you are confused about it, I will state it for you:

President Obama has just overturned the most fundamental principle of western civilization and of any free society. He has arrogated to himself the right to accuse, try, convict and kill an American citizen without reference to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights without due process or Habeus Corpus or two centuries of ironclad, settled law of the land. …Just because he says so…

I can’t believe I have to say this, but: YOU could be next. Think about it, take your time and think it through (this is actually an insult but you’d have to have read Protector to get it).

In a, now typical, Obama blow job piece the toilet paper formerly known as the New York Times goes all the way back to Gerald Ford to rationalize this deeply criminal act here .

Glen Greenwald has a scathing article with many more details here about this disgrace, writing as one constitutional scholar to another.

So, knowing all this, do you think we should militate for the impeachment of President Obama? Or shall we wait for the next step on the road to dictatorship?

"All that is required for evil to triumph, is for enough good men to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke