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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 11/11/10

America's Devolution Into Dictatorship

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Paul Craig Roberts
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The United States Department of Justice (sic) routinely charges and
convicts innocents with bogus and concocted crimes that are not even on the
statutes book. The distinguished defense attorney and civil libertarian, Harvey
A. Silverglate, published a book last year, "Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds
Target the Innocent," which conclusively proves that in today's "freedom and
democracy" America we have punishment without crime.

This same Justice
(sic) Department, which routinely frames and railroads the innocent, argued in
Federal Court on November 8 that the US government, if approved by the
president, could murder anyone it wishes, citizens or non-citizens, at will. All
that is required is that the government declare, without evidence, charges,
trial, jury conviction or any of the due process required by the US
Constitution, that the government suspects the murdered person or persons to be
a "threat."

The US Justice (sic) Department even told US Federal District
Court Judge John Bates that the US judiciary, formerly a co-equal branch of
government, has absolutely no legal authority whatsoever to stick its nose into
President "Change" Obama's decision to assassinate Americans. The
unaccountability of the president's decision to murder people is, the US Justice
(sic) Department declared, one of "the very core powers of the president as
commander in chief."

The argument by the Justice (sic) Department that
the executive branch has unreviewable authority to kill Americans, whom the
executive branch has unilaterally, without presenting evidence, determined to
pose a threat, was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and the
Center For Constitutional Rights.

The outcome of the case will determine
whether the neoconservative and Israeli stooge, president George W. Bush, was
correct when he said that the US Constitution was nothing but a "scrap of
paper."

It is my opinion that the American people and the US Constitution
haven't much chance of winning this case. The Republican Federalist Society has
succeeded in appointing many federal district, appeals and supreme court
judges, who believe that the powers of the executive branch are superior to the
powers of the legislature and judiciary. The Founding Fathers of our country
declared unequivocally that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches
were co-equal. However, the Republican brownshirts who comprise the Federalist
Society have implanted the society's demonic ideology in the federal bench and
Justice (sic) Department. Today the erroneous belief is widespread that the
executive branch is supreme and that the other branches of government are less
than equal.

If Americans have a greater enemy than neoconservatives,
that enemy is the Federalist Society.

Disagree with me as you will, but now let's look at this
development from another perspective. I am old enough to remember the Nixon
years, and I was a presidential appointee, confirmed by the US senate, in the
Reagan administration. For those of you too young to know and those who are to
old to remember, President Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment simply because
Nixon lied about when he learned about the burglary of the Watergate office of
the Democratic party.

Nixon lied about when he learned of the burglary
because he knew that the Washington Post would make an issue of the burglary, if
he launched an investigation, to defeat his re-election. The military/security
complex and the black ops groups in the US government were angry at Nixon for
smoothing US-China relations. The Washington Post, long regarded as a CIA asset,
hid behind its "liberal" image to bring Nixon down. Woodward and Bernstein wrote
thriller-type reports of midnight meetings with "deep throat" in dangerous
parking garages to get the scoop on the date of Nixon's knowledge of the
meaningless burglary.

Let's assume that I have it all wrong. The fact
remains that Nixon was driven from office because of the Watergate burglary. No
one was harmed. Nixon did not kill anyone or claim the right to kill, without
proof or accountability, American citizens. If the dastardly President Nixon
had a Justice (sic) Department like the present one, he simply would have
declared Woodward, Bernstein, and the Washington Post to be a threat and
murdered them by merely exercising the power that the Obama administration is
claiming.

Nixon might be too far in the past for most Americans, so let's
look at Ronald Reagan. The neoconservatives' Iran/Contra scandal almost brought
down President Reagan. It is unclear whether President Reagan knew about the
neocon operation and, if he did, whether he was kept in the loop. But all of
this aside, what do you think would have been President Reagan's fate if he, or
his Justice (sic) Department, had declared that Reagan had the power as
commander in chief to murder anyone he considered to be a
threat?

Instantly, the media would have been in an uproar, law schools
and university faculties would have been in an uproar, the Democrats would have
been demanding Reagan's impeachment, and his impeachment would have occurred
with the speed of light.

Today in Amerika, approximately 25 years later,
the ACLU has to go to federal court in order to attempt to affirm that "if the
Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have
unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an
enemy of the state."

In reply, the Justice (sic) Department told the
court that murdering American citizens is a "political question" that is not
subject to judicial review. The "freedom and democracy" government then invoked
the "state secrets privilege" and declared that the case against the
government's power to commit murder must be dismissed in order to avoid "the
disclosure of sensitive information."

If the Obama Regime wins this case,
the US will have become a dictatorship.

As far as I can tell, the
"liberal media" and most Americans do not care. Indeed, conservative Republicans
are cheering it on.
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Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. He was associate editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service. He is a contributing editor to Gerald Celente's Trends Journal. He has had numerous university appointments. His books, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is available (more...)
 

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