I was furious after reading Senator Obama's statement on the FISA Bill. Righteously enraged, even.
I live in the desert. It often makes me cranky, but when I get righteously enraged, and need to protect others from my presence, the desert serves that purpose well. So, the dog and I headed for the desert. The desert is blooming. Moss roses in yellow, orange and red were everywhere. Prickly pear, paintbrush, and carpets of tiny little purple, blue and white things whose names I've never known. For a few short weeks each year, the desert is truly beautiful, awash in the colors of the rainbow, a vivid reminder that life goes on, even under the harshest of conditions. A few short weeks - the rest of the year, the desert is just intent on killing you.
I'm still fuming, but I love Frank Herbert, the desert is blooming, and I've been thinking ...
Contrary to most 8th grade history books, Lincoln didn't free the slaves because he believed it was the right or moral or humanitarian thing to do. Lincoln freed the slaves because bringing emancipation to the South was a good war strategy, and he was fighting a war of self-preservation. Without the Southern states, Lincoln believed the Union would fail.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help save the Union. - Abraham Lincoln (Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862)."
No, I am not trying to tear down heroes. Regardless of his personal beliefs about slavery, Lincoln did not believe that the President had the power, under the Constitution, to emancipate the slaves. Then, emancipation became a good war strategy. Lincoln believed that the preservation of the Union justified violating the Constitution, so he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. When he thought it was necessary for the Nation's survival, he elevated pragmatism over principle and he intentionally violated the Constitution.
The economic bondage that slaves were delivered into as free men would prove, in many cases, to be worse than the conditions of actual slavery. Emancipation turned out to be a lose-lose proposition from the slave's perspective, at least in the short-term. While progress has been made since 1865, it is agonizingly slow, and the fight for equal rights under the law continues to this day, nearly 150 years later.
We invaded and occupied Iraq to control the oil and preserve our power, our place at the top, in the hierarchy of Nations. It is a war for profit made possible by the promise of liberating the Iraqi people. A liberation which merely delivered them into another form of bondage, equally oppressive, and equally offensive. A lose-lose proposition, from the Iraqi perspective. At least in the short-term, and we can't afford to support them through the long term.
Pragmatism has its price, and those who forget their history, are doomed to repeat it.
Truthfully though, when you get down to brass tacks, it's what we want from our government. The calculated pragmatism that will, at a minimum, ensure our survival, our very existence, regardless of what passionately held principles inflame the hearts of the populace at the time, and regardless of who benefits or who loses. In theory at least, when our very survival is at stake, we remain willing to violate the Constitution in order to save it.
But when one seeks to argue that the situation is so dire that it requires shredding the Constitution, when one seeks to play out Lincoln's hand, and justify the means by the ends, then there had better be a very real and immediate threat behind it. I agree with Lincoln that only a threat of ginormousacle1 proportion could justify pragmatism that embraces the treason of willfully violating the same Constitution one has sworn to uphold. The threat of annhilation.
Is there a current threat that might possibly justify the gutting that the 4th Amendment received in the House of Representatives on Friday? Is it possible that such an enormous threat exists and they really are afraid to tell us about it because it would jeopardize our national security? Does someone have a Nuke pointed at DC and ready to launch, if Congress won't dance? then what is it?
Can I laugh now?
Congresscritters do know about The Boy Who Cried Wolf, right?
It's a real problem. We, who would ordinarily be inclined to give them the benefit doubt, have been betrayed too many times. The public trust has been savaged. We no longer believe them. They have no credibility. We don't trust them.
Do they understand that? Because if they do understand, then one has to assume that they don't trust us, either. From that perspective, it isn't difficult to see why it is so easy for them to justify illegally spying on us.
We know some bad shit has gone down in our government. Is it really so bad that they feel the need to cover it up for fear of sparking an insurrection? Or is the cover-up merely to protect their own selfish, personal interests? One thing is certain, they are not being honest about their alleged need to shred the Constitution, to elevate pragmatism over principle and let the ends justify the means.
I really don't know what the answers are, but I do know that the loss of the public trust creates a very dangerous situation in a representative democracy. Left unchecked, it could become that ginormousacle threat to our very existence. So I'm checking.
Senator Obama, no. I don't believe you. I don't believe that shredding the Constitution is justified under the circumstances, and I demand that you reconsider your support for the FISA Bill. I demand that you uphold the Constitution, or tell us the truth about why you believe it is necessary to gut the 4th Amendment, and let us be the judge of whether your failure to uphold the Constitution is justified.
I do not want a President who will tolerate, much less utilize, the unitary executive powers that Bush has claimed. I do not want a President who values the 4th Amendment so little, that he is not willing to risk his campaign in defense of it. I do not want a President who is willing to compromise on this issue, an issue that strikes at the very heart of what is wrong with our government today - its secrecy and its lack of accountability. I do not want a President who will elevate pragmatism over principle, and violate the Constitution, in the absence of a real and immediate threat to our Nation's very existence. Seven and a half years of that has been quite enough, thank you.
Will I vote for you in November? Yes. I will. But it is now clear to me that that you cannot be trusted to implement the kind of change that you have promised, the transparency and accountability that is so badly needed, the kind of change I could believe in. It is clear to me that you will not hesitate to elevate pragmatism over principle, and shred the Constitution, not only when it is necessary to preserve us, but when it is politically expedient.
Play Lincoln's hand if you must, but don't forget that the reason he wasn't hung by his toes from the Capitol Dome and poked with sharp sticks is that public opinion supported emancipation. The abolitionist movement in America predated the Emancipation Proclamation by some 200 years. 200 years of working to change public opinion, to reveal the evil of slavery, to raise awareness, to generate outrage and organize support. Led by famous and infamous alike, by Lincoln's time, they had reached fever pitch. They were enough in number to be a real political force, and they were actively begging, pleading, cajoling and threatening the government to end the abomination of slavery. Unlike impeachment today, emancipation in Lincoln's time was very much "on the table." The efforts of 18th and 19th century DFHs made it politically possible for Lincoln to embrace emancipation, even if it meant violating the Constitution.
You don't have that public support in your bid to violate the Constitution. The public has spoken quite clearly that they do not support the FISA Bill. For myself, your support of the FISA Bill is a level of realpolitik, that I can only justify if our very existence as a Nation is being threatened, and I simply don't believe that it is.
So I'm checking. It is my duty, as it is the duty of every citizen, to stand for the Constitution and the Rule of Law. To the best of my ability, I will hold you accountable. I am not alone, and we are organizing. Together, we will force not just a check, but checkmate. We will stop you from further eroding the Constitution, and we will make it politically possible for you to rollback the previous overreaching by our government.
The desert is in bloom, anything is possible, and I am optimistic that We the People, will bring you to heel. Sí, se puede.
A republic if you can keep it. -- Benjamin Franklin
Indeed.
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1 ginormousacle = really, really BIG. A new word in my lexicon, courtesy of Miss Cicely. Soft g, long i, and the correct spelling is indeterminate, but "gy" just looked weird.