All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing -
Edmund Burke, Irish orator (1729 - 1797)
If you read nothing else today, spend the few minutes it will take to examine this excellent op-ed analysis in last Friday's (Jan.13)
Washington Post, by George Washington University Law School professor
Jonathan Turley. Turley, a well known legal commentator, is above all politics. He doesn't advocate for Republicans or Democrats, for liberals or conservatives, or for anyone in between. He writes with simple eloquence, asking two core questions: what has happened to the 224 year old American constitution - once a model for the entire free world - and how can the United States continue to lecture other countries about
their human rights obligations while it goes stealthily about enacting draconian "national security" laws which would make the Founding Fathers turn over in their graves - all with the acquiescence of its citizens?
Writes Turley:
"Our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of 'free', but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit."
One of the Founders, a signer of the Constitution, was Benjamin Franklin. When asked by an interested citizen outside of convention hall in Philadelphia what type of government the new country would have, Franklin replied, "Well, it's a republic - if you can keep it." Turley makes a strong case that the Republic of which Franklin spoke is in grave danger.
Here's the link.
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