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{"id":18186,"date":"2011-10-07T00:13:05","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T07:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=18186"},"modified":"2014-12-30T21:28:02","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T04:28:02","slug":"what-do-i-think-of-obama-snuffing-an-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2011\/10\/what-do-i-think-of-obama-snuffing-an-american.html","title":{"rendered":"What Do I think of Obama Snuffing an American?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Got it.\u00a0 True.\u00a0 I\u2019m not weeping for the loss of a murderous goon.<\/p>\n

But (you knew there\u2019d be one).\u00a0 When this country was founded, the gravest danger the Founders thought they faced was not individuals who could commit evil, but a State that could hold absolute, unaccountable power of life and death over its citizens.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we have checks and balances (basically to keep the various government functionaries at cross purposes and to keep anybody from acquiring too much power.\u00a0 For the same reason, we have a system of justice that is built on the presumption that a man is innocent until proven guilty under the law and that the burden is on the State to make that case before the State is allowed to punish\/kill him.<\/p>\n

We have, effectively, just abolished those fundamental principles of our Republic and entrusted, to the Executive, the power to kill anybody he deems fit without evidence, arrest, trial, testimony, witnesses, judge or jury.\u00a0 If the President says you need to be dead, he can kill you now.\u00a0 It\u2019s all been taken care of in a super-secret decision from\u2026 the Executive branch <\/a>whereby it looked over the law carefully and found that it could authorize itself to murder Americans (but not tell us about it)!\u00a0 Think of it as an Enabling Act.\u00a0 The President will only be able to murder whoever he likes for as long as the present crisis (namely, the Eternal War on Terror) exists.\u00a0 And the way the public knows you need to be dead is that the President informs the public, through a docile and compliant media, that you need to be dead.\u00a0 We ordinary citizens *presume* that the Executive would never abuse such power because, hey!\u00a0 It can\u2019t happen here!\u00a0 But, in fact, we don\u2019t really know if the victim who is slated for death by Royal Decree of the President is a terrorist or just some slob the State needs to off for purposes of its own.\u00a0 And the reason we will not know is because we have just jettisoned two fundamental mechanisms created by a thousand years of English law and the Founders to safeguard and guarantee our rights against a rogue state.<\/p>\n

Now the amazing thing is that the Left and Right are both quiescent about all this.\u00a0 The left because it\u2019s our God King doing this and\u00a0they can\u2019t break ranks lest the GOP win.\u00a0 The Right because the orgasmic power of Presidential studliness killing terrorists is so cool that the End to Evil types don\u2019t mind the tradeoff since, you know, 9\/11 Changed Everything.\u00a0 Besides, soon it will be the Right\u2019s turn to wield unchecked power and that\u2019s cool with them too.\u00a0 They already love torture as a \u201ctool\u201d for \u201ckeeping us safe\u201d. <\/a>Why not lawless executions of citizens too?\u00a0 Just another tool in the tool kit as our ruling classes on both sides of the aisle tighten their grip on power and continue to strangle liberty.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"