Is personal freedom a reality or a myth? Does the government execute the will of the governed or the will of those who finance its officials? Does the Bill of Rights restrain the government? Are the levers of government power pulled by those the governed have elected or those we don’t see? Do elections change anything?
Can the president kill people whom he suspects might commit a crime? Aren’t even those who would cause great harm entitled to due process? Isn’t everyone entitled to a fair trial in front of a neutral judge and jury before any punishment can be administered?
Aren’t all persons legally innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty? Isn’t this presumption of innocence the linchpin of American jurisprudence? At trial and before punishment, isn’t it the government’s obligation to prove every element of the crimes charged? Isn’t there no such thing in American jurisprudence as a presumption of guilt?
Aren’t punishments prescribed by law? Can the president make up a punishment and direct the military to administer it to folks he thinks are probably guilty of criminal behavior? Can federal officials perform unlawful acts with impunity just because they are ordered to do so by the president? Is “probably guilty” a sufficient legal standard for punishment?
In war, can the combatants morally target civilians and their structures? Is war waged against the people of a given country, or against its government and military assets? What happens when there is killing without consequence?
Which is worse, a president who kills whomever he wishes or a Congress that funds the killing and is indifferent to the moral, constitutional and legal consequences?
Can the president morally bomb civilians “into the Stone Age” in a country where the civilian population has little control over the government? Why kill or ruin large numbers of civilians whose liberation you have urged?
What is the purpose of a Constitution if it is not followed? Why take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution and then not do so? Why limit war making to the Congress but then ratify the president’s war making as if the Constitution authorized it? If the U.S. bombs other countries to temper their offensive military appetite, who or what will temper America’s offensive military appetite?
Can Congress fund a war it has declined to declare? Why are undeclared wars now commonplace? What to do about a Congress that escapes its constitutional duties? Which is worse, a president who fights an undeclared war or a Congress that does nothing about it?
What is Congress afraid of? Where in the Constitution is the president empowered to spend billions killing foreign persons in an undeclared war? From what source does the president derive power to destroy a foreign land? Why was there no great American debate about war before the president began his killings?
Can the president order killings because he is in the mood for it or because it is fun? Doesn’t the Constitution establish a system of checks and balances so that one of the three branches of the federal government cannot amass power at the expense of either of the other two? Don’t the Constitution and history lay out the functions and powers of the branches of government, and aren’t they supposed to check each other so as to assure personal freedom?
What good are treaties if they’re not followed? Why are treaties the supreme law of the land along with the Constitution itself and all federal statutes? Why does the government violate treaties like the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Charter that U.S. officials wrote and U.S. presidents signed or acknowledged and the U.S. Senate ratified?
Can the president choose which laws he personally will obey and which he will personally violate? Can the government legally break its own laws? Can the president spend money from the U.S. Treasury that has not been authorized by Congress? Can the president impose a sales tax on all goods entering the U.S. from foreign countries? Can the president pick and choose which statutes to enforce and which to ignore? Why is computer hacking a crime, unless it’s done by federal agents?
Can the president put his own name on American cash? Can he put an image of his face on all your cash? Does Congress still write the laws and appropriate funds, or does the president now do these things on his own?
Is the president required to tell the truth? Is the government required to tell the truth? Why is it that the government can lie to the people but it is a crime to lie to the government? Does the government work for us, or do we work for the government? Does the government know more about us than we do about it?
What happens when the government is untruthful and the people believe it? Isn’t truth the essential bond between the government and the governed in a free society? Doesn’t the government derive its just powers from the consent of the governed? What happens when the government does things to which the governed have never consented?
Are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness truly inalienable individual rights that every person has because they are integral to our humanity, or are these words just Thomas Jefferson’s musings written to arouse a reluctant public to challenge a king? Was the bloody revolution that was brewing on the east coast of North America 250 years ago a just war?
If the colonies could justly secede from London, why can’t the states justly secede from Washington? Is the right to leave the government without surrendering your property not a natural right integral to our humanity? What happens if you tell the government to take a hike?
Can the president terrify the whole country by threatening to wipe out an entire civilization across the globe? Why do presidents kill innocents?
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