The Death of The Republic

If you hear church bells tolling, it's because the United States of America has fallen. You heard it first at Jesus General; Bitch PhD has called it here and here.

I took high school civics. I know that without habeas corpus, the authority of any government is basically might makes right. Foreign nationals living legally in the USA may be declared an enemy combatant (definition to be determined by the President) and then detained indefinitely.

American citizens, too can be classified as 'enemy combatants' if they give material support to 'the enemy.' See? You don't even have to actually be an 'enemy' or a 'combatant.'

We are not 'one step away' from witch hunts, or UnAmerican hearings, folks, we have leapt PAST that step. Accused witches and communists at least got a hearing, however phoney. Now we just lock them up, and torture is not out of the question.

Today on NPR, I heard that the enemey combatants who are American citizens get more rights than others. So "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...." Eh, not so self-evident any more, apparently.

And 'innocent until proven guilty in a court of law'? Ha ha ha!

The terrorists hate our freedoms? No problem, the Administration is taking our freedoms away.

The Republic is dead. The grand experiment in Democracy has failed.

I'm not sure if you're reaching for the Roman allusion(s) or the Star Wars one, but we let this one happen, folks. Some of you voted for it. So you're not going to blame this one on decadence, or homosexuals, or the Sith. We did this to ourselves.

Well folks, maybe the decline and fall won't be spectacular and apocalyptic. Maybe we've just become and old world country, with no real vision of liberty, a spotted history of freedom and atrocity. Maybe we've just become the same ol' old world country that the yearning masses longing to to be free were running from in the first place.

I'm not so naive to think that the USA was ever really that paradise of ideals, but it seems like before GWB, we were trying to be. Forgive me if it has always been this bleak under Republicans.