Stop the Shredding of the Constitution

We have a President who does not believe in the Constitution. This is a ground-level fact about our government today. The sad truth is, he was lying both times he took the oath to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." When I was commissioned as an Army officer, my oath added, "... against all enemies, foreign and domestic." In fact, Bush himself - advised by his partner in crime, Dick Cheney - is the "enemy domestic" I swore to protect the Constitution against.

How do we know this? He said it himself:

Bush - "I don't give a goddamn; I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way!"
Aide - "Mr. President, there is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."
Bush - "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

The current administration has committed crime after crime against the Constitution; you can read about them in lots of places, and a short list of some of those places appears at the bottom of this page. There are two larger problems, though, with the Bush administration's demolition of the Constitution:

  1. The Congress and the Supreme Court, designed by the framers of the Constitution to be "checks and balances" against this kind of usurpation of power, have stood silent and allowed it to happen. In other words, they have told us by their actions - or, rather, their inaction - that they also do not believe that the Constitution has force in this nation any more.

  2. Once rights have been taken away, as ours have over the past eight years, they are not reclaimed easily. Every "signing statement" that was meekly agreed to by the Congress, every restrictive law written in the basement of the Executive branch and passed by Congress without even reading it, and every illegal act carried out by the Executive without Congress's or the courts' even caring have moved us farther and farther from our Constitutional liberties.

It's not just our Constitution that's being shredded; it's our chldrens' and grandchildrens' Constitution that's not going to be there to protect their rights and freedoms when they grow up.

We have let it happen. We have elected people to Congress who allowed this illegal usurpation of power to take place - people like our incumbent senator. Through the people we have elected, we have allowed the Bush administration to do its dirty work on our precious Constitution. The thing to do now is to begin electing people to both houses of Congress who will fight the destruction of the Constitution, tooth and nail - people like Tom Davis.

What concrete steps will I take to reclaim our Constitution? First, I will work for the repeal of the so-called "PATRIOT" Act in toto - just remove it from existence in the laws of our nation. Next, I will work for the repeal of the PATRIOT Act II and the Military Commissions Act. There are a lot more things to be done - for example, convince the next President to nullify George W's infamous signing statements - but that's a good start.

Some other external references on this issue: