“We must remember that achieving power is never the goal sought by a truly free society. Dissipation of power is the objective of those who love liberty.”
- U.S. Representative Ron Paul, R-TX, 1984

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect, had intended for us to forgo their use.”—Galileo Galilei

“He that cannot reason is a fool; He that will not is a bigot; He that dare not is a slave.”— Sir William Drummond c.1770-1828

I am a 'swing voter.' There are ideals of both political parties with which I agree and disagree (see my political views in detail). I will vote for whoever I think will be the best leader and uphold our Constitution the most skillfully, regardless of party affiliation. The increasingly popular practice of voting for someone simply because of their party affiliation, and regardless of other qualifications, is in my opinion a very dangerous trend.

That said, I will now say that the actions of our current Administration (under President George W. Bush) make me seriously fearful that this country is in danger of ceasing to be a free democracy. It may take fifty years or a hundred, but if we keep going down this path and do nothing to stop it, it will happen. I sometimes get the response that I am being paranoid and overreacting. Or people assume that I’m a “bleeding heart liberal,” which I am not. There have been a number of Republicans whom I greatly admire and for whom, if they run for President, I would have voted or will vote. (I would have voted for John McCain in 2000 had he won the primaries.)

WHAT'S DIFFERENT ABOUT THIS ADMINISTRATION?

So what's different about this Administration? Consider the following four things:

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2. Governmental authority to invade citizens’ privacy and take citizens into custody for any reason at any time

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
—Benjamin Franklin

The Patriot Act was passed on October 24th, 2001. Certain aspects of the Act are set to expire in 2005 unless Congress votes to reauthorize them, but the Bush Administration and certain members of Congress are pushing to make the Patriot Act permanent. The following is an excerpt from a speech by Al Gore on November 3, 2003 detailing the Patriot Act and examining the relationship between our freedom and our security:

Click here to read the entire transcript from Al Gore’s speech “Freedom and Security.”

Click here to read the entire Patriot Act.

Associated Press article, Mar 15, 2004: Privacy Protecting Programs Killed

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3. Claiming divine favor and sanction

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”—Susan B. Anthony

“The moment a person (or government or religion or organization) is convinced that God is either ordering or sanctioning a cause or project, anything goes.”
—Eugene Peterson (from the introduction to the book of Amos in the Bible paraphrase The Message)

“I am concerned about politicians trying to give the impression because they pray, that the decisions they make are necessarily guided by God. ...The spirits that are not of God can cleverly pretend that God is speaking to us. Even the best of us can be fooled. I marvelled at the millions of people throughout the world who protested the proposed invasion of Iraq. I believe that this was God's voice, heard in the hearts of these millions. Often, in hindsight, we realize that God had spoken to us. Maybe, we should ask our “religious“ politicians to learn discernment of spirits.”
—Helen Wallace

“A general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith… We need believing people.”—Adolf Hitler on April 26, 1933, in a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933

Many who profess faith in Christ believe that because our current Administration claims that it desires to uphold Christian ideals, that Christians should support it. But I do not agree. For one thing, religiosity in any group or person is no guarantee of character, integrity, leadership ability, morality, or even a genuine concern for the welfare of others. (Just consider televangelist Jim Bakker, pedophile priests, Adolf Hitler, etc.) For another, it is not the job of the government of a democracy to dictate morality to its citizens, except in cases where a lack of morality hurts innocent bystanders.

86% of our population today holds to the Christian faith. (See Adherents.com for more religious demographics.) The founders of this country believed spiritual values to be essential to the upholding and preservation of democracy. There is plenty of documented proof for that, and for the encouragement of Christian values in particular. (See Religion and the Founding of the American Republic for evidence of Christian values in the Continental Congress.) However, they did not enforce any tenets specific to Christianity in any legal document, including the Constitution, or by use of any laws. It was not until 1956 that “In God We Trust“ was declared by law to be our national motto, during the McCarthy era. (See the U.S. Treasury's History of In God We Trust fact sheet.)

It is extremely disturbing to see the decline in morality of this country since the 1950s. But the very fact that 86% of Americans still claim to be Christian proves that this is not due to a lack of religiosity. My personal observation is that the moral breakdown in our country has occurred (and continues to worsen) because of the entrenched American value of promoting the interest of self above all other interests. This “self first“ philosophy is upheld and encouraged in nearly every magazine, media outlet, self-help book and entertainment venue across the country... even in most religious and Christian circles (as I have personally and repeatedly observed), although it goes directly against Jesus' own words. Here is an excerpt from a religion text used in numerous Catholic high schools and not subject to government regulation:

This individualistic “self first“ philosophy has in turn caused a large-scale breakdown in the family unit, as divorce rates skyrocket and children are raised in increasingly single-parent homes. In general, Americans today focus much more on their “rights“ than on their responsibilities. Asia, which is mainly Buddhist, has much stronger family values than America does, because those values are entrenched in the culture. Although our majority religion is Christianity, we have very weak family values because that is now entrenched in our national culture.

As a reaction to America's moral decline, many political conservatives (most notably the Christian Coalition, which has strong ties with this Administration) are calling for increased ties between Christianity and government to try to repair this moral breakdown. And they seem to deeply believe that this Administration is approved of by God, because President Bush is religious. In an article I recently read, prominent evangelist Pat Robertson was quoted as saying “It does not matter whether what President Bush does is bad or good. He is a praying man, and that is why he is God's man.” That is an extremely scary attitude. I attended a women's bible study with a friend of mine at which, during the opening prayer, one of the women prayed to God to “keep 'Your man' in office.”... meaning President Bush. I asked my friend if all the members of that church believe that Bush is “God's man,“ and she said no. But it is a very common sentiment among conservative Christians. And it is a sentiment which has by no means been proven to be based in reality.

History has made it abundantly clear that when any government claims that it has God's special sanction or approval, terribly manipulative abuses of power are almost sure to follow. And in fact, I have seen signs of this now in our country under this Administration. Bush elevated the war on Iraq to the status of a ‘holy war’ with his phrases about fighting evil and about America being God’s representatives to uphold the good. This kind of rhetoric is a very common abuse of religion which has been effectively exercised throughout human history to increase power, usually with bloody results. As I write this, I am thinking of radical Islamists... the very ones we are claiming to oppose, but whose attitude this Administration seems to be emulating quite closely.

Please also read Dangerous Religion: Bush's Theology of Empire by Jim Wallis of Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace

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4. Pre-emptive war

“Why, of course the people don't want war. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing their country to danger.”
-Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trial for Nazi crimes

“The Nuremberg war crimes tribunal was convened to render judgment on the Nazi leaders following World War II. The tribunal was an institution organized by the victorious Allied governments. U.S. prosecutors set forth a democratic legal principle derived from the international experience of a half-century of carnage: that planning and launching an aggressive war constituted a criminal act and that those who helped prepare such a war through their propaganda efforts were as culpable as those who drew up the battle plans or manufactured the munitions.”—David Walsh, Information Times
View the Harvard collection of the Nuremburg Trials

“Containment didn't keep the Soviets from developing instruments of mass destruction, but it did prevent them from using them, and containment of Saddam has kept him from aggressive action outside Iraq since 1991, but will not keep him from trying to balance the weapons of mass destruction already held by Israel, India, and Pakistan with weapons of his own. Saddam is not more ruthless or pathological or driven by suicidal ideology than the Soviet dictators with whom containment worked effectively. Saddam is an expert at self-preservation, and as long as it remains clear to him that use of nuclear weapons would mean not only his death, but the destruction of Iraq, and as long as we do not threaten to kill him personally, there is every reason to believe that the containment policies will continue to work. Just as the Soviets loved to talk of “burying“ us, so Saddam will talk about Israel and the United States. Yet when it comes down to it, Saddam will taunt but he will not strike as long as we in the international community make clear to him the costs of aggressive action.”—Michael Lerner, Tikkun Magazine

“The Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them.... To question your government is not unpatriotic - to not question your government is unpatriotic.”
- Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) , responding to the president's suggestion early in the week of November 10th 2005 that critics of the war in Iraq are “sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy.”

“The Bush administration says this was not an imperial war. Let's hope it is right. But the trouble with empires is that they’re not always planned.”—James O. Goldsborough, San Diego Union-Tribune

The pre-emptive war, obviously, was with Iraq.”But it is necessary,” you say!

“Prove it,” I say.

To this very day no one has been able to find any proof (that means none, zip, nada) that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was getting ready to blow up this country. And not only that, but there has also not been found any proof that Saddam Hussein was connected with Al-Queda. It’s all been speculation and assumption. The Iraqis have not committed any proven crime against us. They may hate us, but they have still not ever been proven to pose a direct, immediate threat to us, either now or in the future. Here are some “revelations“ by those involved:

Some Americans believe that the war in Iraq was necessary in order to “protect our freedoms.” And I must ask, how were our freedoms threatened? Even if proof for WMDs or a direct link to Al-Queda had been found, our freedoms as Americans would still not have been threatened. The only way the Iraqis (or any group) could take away our freedoms would be if they were to come over here, land on our shores, invade our entire huge and powerful country, subdue our military and take it over by force. Can anyone seriously think the Iraqis have the capability to do this? Even if any group has the power to blow us all into oblivion, they have no power to “take away our freedoms” until they can control our government. If they kill us without taking over our government, we still die a free people.

In addition, there are currently several other nations which pose greater military threats to our country than Iraq ever did. But because of political interests, we have chosen to focus in on Iraq while giving only lip service to the threats posed by these other countries, or placating them because we have business interests there.

Click here for more about why we went to war with Iraq, and what's going on over there now.

Launching a first strike on any country goes against the principles upon which this country was founded, and, in fact, has never before happened in the history of our nation. Now that it has happened, instead of retaining our status as a model of a new kind of country, we have put ourselves on the same level as all the empires and dictatorships in history, something our country has up till now prided itself in not being.

Not only that, but according to our own international laws and standards as set forth in the Nuremburg tribunal, we have committed a criminal act by launching a strike against a country which has never done us any actual harm.

Bush has given this war the status of a holy war. But holy to what god? Who is the Jesus who says “kill them before they have the chance to blow you up, even though you're not even sure they have the capability?“ Not the Jesus I know.

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LESSONS FROM HISTORY

“The Roman world was rotting from within. Government paternalism, bureaucracy, inflation, an ever–increasing taste for the brutal and brutalizing spectacles of the amphitheatre and the circus were symptoms of a spiritual malaise which had begun when political freedom was tossed away in the interests of peace, security and materialism.”
—W. G. Hardy, The Greek and Roman World: A Social and Cultural Study

I believe that what is happening today in America parallels in many ways what happened in Rome, where the Senate gradually and subtly lost power while the Caesar (who based his right to power on his claim to be a god) gained it, until Rome was finally transformed from a Republic to an Empire. This was made possible because ‘free’ Roman citizens, who boasted about their freedom, had become politically lazy and complacent, and therefore either unaware of or unconcerned by what was happening right underneath their noses. Their freedoms were not first diminished by outside powers or countries, but from within, from their own government.

I have also recently read about the reasons and processes behind the Nazi party’s rise to power in Germany, and there are many parallels in that to our current situation as well. I do not believe that at heart Bush himself is a narcissistic dictator like Hitler, but the processes are very similar, and that is what is scary. Hitler used the same strategies for the use and increase of power that the Bush administration is using: finding reasons to build up armaments, attacking and subduing other countries without clear provocation, appealing to the peoples’ sense of patriotic and religious pride, and calling for aggressive tactics even without international support. The German people naively believed and trusted Hitler and let it all happen with barely a complaint. We think it can’t happen to us because we are the “home of the free.” But we've only been the “home of the free“ for two hundred years, which is a very short time compared to the age of most nations around the world.

I am not the only one who sees these parallels. Early on in Bush's presidency, a prominent German official compared Bush to Hitler and was fired for it. A prominent billionaire named George Soros (author of The Bubble of American Supremacy, which examines modern America's foreign policy) is devoting his monetary resources to Bush’s removal from office because:

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CONCLUSION

“As U.S. citizens, the only civic responsibility we're asked to undertake is to vote. In exchange we're given the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It's the best bargain in the world! Our great-grandmothers marched, were arrested, and suffered heroically in jail to obtain the vote for women. People walked the dusty back roads of the South, and sometimes died, to ensure African-Americans the right to vote. We should be humbled by that. We have progressed to where we are because we stand on all their shoulders, and we must never forget it. Voting says thank you.”
- Senator Edward M. Kennedy writing for O, The Oprah Magazine, February 2004

In order for our society to work correctly, our leaders must be chosen and approved by us, the people. I believe that to be uninvolved in the political process is to neglect an important responsibility of American citizenship. I can’t in good conscience enjoy all the privileges of democracy without doing my part to uphold and protect it. It is important to do my simple duty as a citizen, which means at the very least to make an educated vote in every election.

For me it is an act of gratitude to God for letting me live in a prosperous, safe and free nation. And I believe those freedoms are now under immediate threat because of the policies of our current Administration.

Will I still be able to write something like this in fifty years and not be thrown in jail? Not if each American citizen does not continually stay on guard against the stripping away of his or her freedoms by those who have the ability to do so.

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“The only real enemy of freedom that the people of the United States need fear is would-be tyrants within our own federal and state governments. No foreign organization nor government, nor group of organizations nor group of governments has the slightest chance of extinguishing American freedom. Only Americans can destroy their freedom, by giving it over to the government.”—L. Craig Schoonmaker, Chairman of the Expansionist Party of the United States, September 23, 2002

“Within the U.S., the Bush Administration has shown an unusually hostile attitude toward the exercise of personal freedom. When your individual choices conflict with what the Bush people think is good for you, they have been only too happy to intervene. The government, Bush clearly believes, has a right to be involved in many personal decisions you make... pushing and prodding the public to live the good life as the President understands it. The nanny state, much loved by Democrats, is thriving under Republicans. ...Once upon a time, Republicans believed in leaving it to the private and voluntary sectors to do the important work of building citizenship and values. Remember the 'thousand points of light'? These days those lightbulbs need government subsidies. ...States' rights are well and good--as long as the states don't do things that some Republicans disapprove of.”—Andrew Sullivan, TIME magazine, February 2, 2004

“The government isn't mommy. It can't be if we are to enjoy the blessings of liberty, which include the liberty to be gay or to be a right-wing Christian. All these are possible only if the role of government is limited to its basic purpose: to execute laws that minimize interpersonal friction, maximize individual freedom and do not choose sides in religious and ideological battles.”—Lloyd Anderson, a letter to TIME in response to the above article

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Related articles:

The Troubling New Face of America
by former President Jimmy Carter

The Arrogant Empire
by Fareed Zakaria for Newsweek magazine