Many of you may remember

…my criticism of the “Everything is Justified by the Fact We are At War!” doctrine of the Rubber Hose Right. Now and then, on extremely rare ocassions in this space, I have seen fit to criticize Catholics who defended this, warning that Ideas have Consequences and the Ends Don’t Justify the Means.

Many on the Left were, of course, happy to laud me for Speaking Truth to Bush Power like that. Many on the Right suspected I was secretly an Obamaphile, since as we all know, to question Bush war crimes is automatically to say, “If only a Socialist Baby-Killer who wants to leave American prostrate before her enemies were in the White House! Then things would be *great*.”

In fact, however, all of these attempts at mind-reading were hampered by the fact that many critics as well as supporters don’t seem to have been able to read even my texts, much less my mind. Here’s the scoop: I don’t support Obama. It’s just that I don’t support acts of grave intrinsic evil. That’s the Catholic side of me talking. In addition, the constitutionalist in me hates “executive usurpation of due process under the theory that we can be transformed into a Presidential Imperium that has unilateral freedom to do whatever the hell it wants, war without end. Amen.” Such states tend to become lawless murder states where the powerful can and do murder citizens and then call it “protecting national security”. It is to guard against such tyranny that we have things like due process.

The latest assault on our liberty and security in the name of liberty and security comes with the news that the Son of the Living God has inaugurated the New Age of Hope and Change by unilaterally authorizing the assassination of an American citizen.

As Greenwald explains, that’s a step up from Bush!

[I]n Barack Obama’s America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens — and a death penalty imposed — is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone’s guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America’s newspapers — cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they’re granted — to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American military targets (advocacy which happens to be Constitutionally protected) to Actual Terrorist “involved in plots.” These newspapers then print this Executive Verdict with no questioning, no opposition, no investigation, no refutation as to its truth. And the punishment is thus decreed: this American citizen will now be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done. What kind of person could possibly justify this or think that this is a legitimate government power?

Just to get a sense for how extreme this behavior is, consider — as the NYT reported — that not even George Bush targeted American citizens for this type of extra-judicial killing (though a 2002 drone attack in Yemen did result in the death of an American citizen). Even more strikingly, Antonin Scalia, in the 2004 case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, wrote an Opinion (joined by Justice Stevens) arguing that it was unconstitutional for the U.S. Government merely to imprison (let alone kill) American citizens as “enemy combatants”; instead, they argued, the Constitution required that Americans be charged with crimes (such as treason) and be given a trial before being punished. The full Hamdi Court held that at least some due process was required before Americans could be imprisoned as “enemy combatants.” Yet now, Barack Obama is claiming the right not merely to imprison, but to assassinate far from any battlefield, American citizens with no due process of any kind.

That is not a Glenn Beck fever dream or a paranoid Birther scenario. That is the country we now live in.

The King of Kings and Lord of Lords of these United States no longer requires things like trials, sentences, the rule of law or all that other crap that slows things down with stuff like “arrests” and “gathering evidence” and “actually knowing whether the intended victim is guilty of something”. If the President thinks you are guilty or wills you to be guilty of somehow being a threat to the US in the Great and Unending War on Terror, that’s all it takes: you, an American citizen, can now be murdered in cold blood by the state. Of course, the Lord Most High Who Dwelleth in DC naturally assures us that this power to… what’s the word? murder… will only be used against The Really Bad Guys and you can take that to the bank. I mean, since *when* has a man with unchecked and unquestioned power to kill anybody he likes without trial or appeal and with the full cooperation of a supine media *ever* misused such power? And surely, no future President will ever allow such power to be corrupted as a tool for terrorizing his enemies and accruing despotic power for himself. Just as Bush’s accrual of power for the Executive is not being misused by Obama, so no future President will misuse the brand new Presidential Power to Murder People He’s Pretty Sure are Guilty of Threats Against National Security. All is well.

Now… I hate to say “I told you so” to the numbskulls who have fought so long and hard to secure this power for the President when he was Your Guy, The Just and Wise George W. Bush, but….

I told you so, you numbskulls!

But before the Lefties starting gettting all up in Bush/Cheney’s grill, I have some questions. Namely, one is forced to ask: While the New York Times and organs of propaganda have been busy smearing the one guy who has done more to heal the Church than anybody else, where are these devoted sycophants of the Light Bearer as he deepens the rot and hastens the progress of the US from de jure Presidential monarchy to a de facto one? Where are all the Hopeychangeys as their Messiah inaugurates the program of unilateral Presidential Murder Decrees Against American Citizens (But Only the Really Bad Ones, Trust Us!)

Attention: You are now leaving the “What Could it Hurt?” phase of history. Next stop: “How were we supposed to know?” Feeling safe yet?