The "most transparent Administration in history" becomes the same administration that prosecutes more whistleblower cases than every other administration combined?
That's a lot more than a "broken promise" - especially when it goes had in hand with a flagrant violation of the Oath of Office ("Do you Solemnly swear to protect and defend the Constitution?") which is 100% counter to lobbying for then authorizing indefinite detention of Americans without trial.
The point is that this Administration harbors something deeply cancerous. Bad in the most absolute sense of the word. Maybe the tumor won't metastasize until Obama is out of office, kind of like the way that Clinton's repeal of Glass-Stegall didn't deliver a financial implosion until the end of Bush's second term. But make no mistake - within a decade, we're going to see something truly monstrous emerge from his baffling disdain for core civil liberties.
Nothing in his campaign suggested that this was coming, nor can anyone say "this is just a different viewpoint on civil liberties, and it just has to be accepted." Yes, it's different - in the same way that the Pope's tolerance of those who sexually abuse children is different from most people's. But that does not make it even remotely acceptable.
Remember the whole "Constitutional Scholar" thing? That was held up as part of a promise to reverse the damage done under Bush. That's like promising to mend a broken leg, then putting a bullet in both kneecaps. Anybody who tries to spin this by saying "Sure, he has not followed up on all of his campaign promises" is...well, there's no civil way of putting it.
Seriously, think about what you're defending here. Just take a minute and THINK about it.
Incompetence is not "evil in the most absolute sense of the word". The recently passed century has given us glimpses into what evil may look like, and it does not resemble the current US administration.
I think injecting politics with heated emotion is often confusing and counterproductive.
Your ignorance was excusable a decade ago, @cema, but we are waaaaay past that point today. At this stage, it's just trolling.
Seriously, just consider the following rundown of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11, prepared by By Jonathan Turley. And remember, I said the full bloom of the evil is, perhaps, a decade away. These are merely the seeds, which Obama is watering with deeply unsettling regularity.
1. Assassination of U.S. citizens
President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)
2. Indefinite detention
Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)
3. Arbitrary justice
The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)
4. Warrantless searches
The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party. (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan operate under laws that allow the government to engage in widespread discretionary surveillance.)
5. Secret evidence
The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.
6. War crimes
The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries. (Various nations have resisted investigations of officials accused of war crimes and torture. Some, such as Serbia and Chile, eventually relented to comply with international law; countries that have denied independent investigations include Iran, Syria and China.)
7. Secret court
The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance. (Pakistan places national security surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services.)
8. Immunity from judicial review
Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy. (Similarly, China has maintained sweeping immunity claims both inside and outside the country and routinely blocks lawsuits against private companies.)
9. Continual monitoring of citizens
The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. (Saudi Arabia has installed massive public surveillance systems, while Cuba is notorious for active monitoring of selected citizens.)
10. Extraordinary renditions
The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.
So know that you know what people are actually concerned about, are you still so cavalier? If you need to read a bit more before making up your mind, you can get additional detail from the original article, which is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-the-united-states-...
What makes you think those words weren't carefully chosen?
And while we're on the topic of words and their meanings, what caused you to downplay Obama's actions by chalking them up to "incompetence"?
More to the point, now that you've been given a (ridiculously long) list of bad things that have gotten worse - not better - under his watch, do you think that, maybe, you had no idea what you're talking about, and that 'ignorant' was an entirely accurate description of your views?
What makes you think those words weren't carefully chosen?
The words you chose were "ignorance" and "trolling". This was name calling and an ad hominem attack, not a mutually respectful discussion. Moreover, it is apparent to me that you were trying to argue with me without a clear understanding of my position.
I am sure there is more to Obama than just incompetence, and it has been painful to me to watch Americans fall for him so thoroughly in the recent years. But when you use the word "evil", you are in danger of losing the sight of the political landscape in the country. And, at the same time, losing the perspective on what the true evil is.
Example from my personal biography. I now live in the United States, came here 20 years ago from Russia, so before then I lived in the Soviet Union. USSR during the time of Brezhnev (which is the USSR I remember) was certainly worse in the aspects that were mentioned (liberties, personal rights, and so on; plus a totalitarian ideology, which is non-existent in the US). Even so, it was not an embodiment of evil. Before that, Stalin's times were much worse, and certainly closer to the absolute evil, but even that pales in comparison to Nazi Germany. Which, luckily, was destroyed well before I was born, so no personal memories. Was it evil? Perhaps, but it's a long way from Brezhnev's USSR which is a long way from the modern USA.
You, if you are a native born American, could go back to your (or your parents') history, comparing the USA of 2011 with the USA of 1960s, 1950s, WWII, and so on. Those were not evil times, and still the situation has noticeably improved since then.
I am not saying we should not be vigilant. I am saying we should not make every political disagreement into a battle field. People with whom we disagree are not necessarily monsters, maybe they simply have a different opinion or calculate odds differently. There is often, more often than not, room for compromises. They are people too.
Edit: I apologize for verbosity. Just thought you deserved an honest explanation.
You're right about Germany and Russia of the 1940's being different from the USA of today. And we'd like to keep it that way. Ergo, the very low tolerance for the kind of constitutional disregard that's going on.
Something else to keep in mind; unlike nearly every other country in the world, the US does not have a single, coherent, cultural, ethnic, or religious identity. There are dominant groups, to be sure, but none entirely so. This is a pluralistic country. There's an inherent fragility to that which demands increased respect for the law, given the absence of deep unifying tradition.
And when it comes to cancer, a tumor is deadly from the moment it appears. The sooner it's removed the better, otherwise it really will get out of hand. By American standards, what's happening is bad. Those standards may be tighter than standards elsewhere, but relative to the country it's a real shock. Plenty of intelligent people are really taken aback by the response to 9/11, which, in retrospect, has been vastly more damaging to the country than anything Bin Laden did directly.
Unlike Bin Laden, the people who are pushing for a total surveillance state are not dead. Nor are they retreating. And yes, what they are building is evil. Not because of anything that it's being used for presently, but for what it represents, in that it marks a shift from a government that is bound by the law to one that isn't, and simply asks that you trust it not to abuse its now-unchecked liberty. That is the precise opposite of what our Framers intended. To date, respect for that principle has spared us from a great deal of misery.
On this, we may disagree. But I appreciate your thoughtful reply. And I apologize for my personal remarks.
The "most transparent Administration in history" becomes the same administration that prosecutes more whistleblower cases than every other administration combined?
That's a lot more than a "broken promise" - especially when it goes had in hand with a flagrant violation of the Oath of Office ("Do you Solemnly swear to protect and defend the Constitution?") which is 100% counter to lobbying for then authorizing indefinite detention of Americans without trial.
The point is that this Administration harbors something deeply cancerous. Bad in the most absolute sense of the word. Maybe the tumor won't metastasize until Obama is out of office, kind of like the way that Clinton's repeal of Glass-Stegall didn't deliver a financial implosion until the end of Bush's second term. But make no mistake - within a decade, we're going to see something truly monstrous emerge from his baffling disdain for core civil liberties.
Nothing in his campaign suggested that this was coming, nor can anyone say "this is just a different viewpoint on civil liberties, and it just has to be accepted." Yes, it's different - in the same way that the Pope's tolerance of those who sexually abuse children is different from most people's. But that does not make it even remotely acceptable.
Remember the whole "Constitutional Scholar" thing? That was held up as part of a promise to reverse the damage done under Bush. That's like promising to mend a broken leg, then putting a bullet in both kneecaps. Anybody who tries to spin this by saying "Sure, he has not followed up on all of his campaign promises" is...well, there's no civil way of putting it.
Seriously, think about what you're defending here. Just take a minute and THINK about it.