The Death of the Republic

The New York Times reported today -- In Major Ruling, Court Orders Times Reporter to Testify -- that one of their own reporters could soon be incarcerated should he fail to testify against his source. The Times reported: “Risen is the only eyewitness to the crime,” Judge Traxler wrote. 'He is inextricably involved in it. Without him, the alleged crime would not have occurred, since he was the recipient of illegally disclosed, classified information.'”

In essence, Judge Traxler has determined that any reporter who receives classified information faces incarceration should he fail to testify against a suspect. This ruling promises to silence the media in ways that we cannot imagine, since the government now classifies even the most routine of information. Should any of that routine information be discussed or disclosed, then either the reporter or the ''leaker'' shall be incarcerated. It could just be the case that a New York Times reporter will become another of the nearly 2.4 million prisoners in the world's largest prison system.

However, Risen should consider himself lucky that he faces a prison sentence with an affixed end-date. Another Appellate Court ruled that indefinite detention of US citizens is perfectly legal. And then our secret court approved the renewal of the NSA's massive data-collection program, while Federal employees were told not to click on a Washington Post link because it contains a classified slide. No longer does the government remind its employees that they swore an oath to defend the Constitution, instead they are reminded that they swore an oath to protect classified information. People in any real democracy would be outraged, but our President cunningly used race tonight to distract from his tyrannical victories.

And the President was successful in his sleight-of-hand, for tomorrow the people will rally across the country. They will rally not for redress of grievances, those grievances being too numerous to list since the beginning of this contrived, never-ending war on terror. Tomorrow the people will instead rally demanding that the right of double jeopardy be eliminated. From a legal perspective, it's already apparent that Obama has prepared charges against Zimmerman that will establish a precedent severely curtailing the 2nd amendment. 

While I personally believe that guns should be licensed more strictly than vehicles, I can clearly see that enough Americans are vehemently and violently opposed to the idea. Obama seems willing to confront that vehement, violent opposition. He molds himself in the style of Lincoln, and is not afraid to plunge the nation into a civil war. Brazil and other nations abolished slavery peacefully, but that word is not in the American style.

Our style is war, and for that we elected a psychopath; not that there's anything wrong with that, since only a psychopath can lie to an audience of millions while planning the death of millions more, and sometimes you need that in order to fix society's problems. At this point I'm only hoping that the Psychopath-in-Chief has ultimately good intentions, that he believes that tyranny will ultimately make the world a better place. But countless tyrants have promised the same, and their power is convincing people that they ultimately have good, noble intentions. In the same way that the jury believed that Zimmerman had good intentions in following Martin, so are we expected to believe that Obama has good intentions in following our current path towards an imperial presidency.