There are certainly lots of arguments to be made against the Bush Administration, but I’m not really trying to address the legitimate policy decisions that I disagree with. This is about a much more fundamental problem: George W. Bush has tossed aside the very Constitution he swore to uphold, and in so doing, has launched an egregious attack on the very people who elected him.

I want to make clear that this is not about his total disregard for sane environmental policy, his ludicrous attempts at derailing social security, his willful disrespect for the international community, his economic policy that results in wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich, his amazing ability to make an already awful school system much worse, the policies that resulted in the devaluation of the US dollar, or even his total lack of fiscal responsibility. This is about his attack on our freedom.

Bush has made a grab for executive power over the last 7 years that is, in scope, unprecedented by any US President. In fact, the tactics are very reminiscent of those used by “presidents” of fledgling “democracies” that have since failed. See, for example, Vladimir Putin.

This is a great look at how the Bush administration’s notion of executive power is not supported constitutionally, historically, or even by Justice Scalia.

How can a president who has tried to assert totalitarian powers be supported by people who claim to be staunch supporters of civil rights? How can you support a president who has attempted to restrict your freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom to assemble and petition the government, right to be free from unreasonable searches, right to due process, freedom to travel, or even your freedom to carry toothpaste on airplanes, all the while essentially claiming he can do whatever he wants?

What’s worse, is that the awful rationale often given for this is that we’re “at war”. Really? Last I checked, the US was at war when congress declared war, something it hasn’t done since 1942. Furthermore, even if we were at war, that’s a really bad though really old excuse to restrict civil rights.

The terrorists didn’t attack us because they, “hate our freedom,” they attacked us because of our support of Israel, our continued hostility toward Iraq, and our military bases in Saudi Arabia. In fact, as far as I can tell, the people who, “hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other,” are Bush and his cronies.

What could be more important than these first rights? What could be more dangerous to our democracy than a president who has to respect for the limits of his office? Some have said that a Democrat would have done worse in similar situations, but I don’t believe that. I certainly think that all the democrats in congress for who voted for the Patriot Act (would have killed any of them to read it first?) and who voted for military action in Iraq should be held accountable, but complacency is not evidence that they would have done the same. Why is it that so many of the people who complained about Clinton attacking Iraq supported Bush doing the same? How are voters making decisions today, anyway? If our freedoms aren’t important to you, then what is?

Certainly in a republic, one is unlikely to be able to pick a candidate for national office whose policy ideas mirror his own. So we have to pick the important things. The AOPA suggests, for instance, that I vote purely on the basis of a candidate’s support for or opposition to general aviation. This is, I think, obviously absurd. Some things are important and some aren’t, but isn’t a basic respect for the constitution, the office of president, and civil liberties a necessary prerequisite for any candidate? One could argue (albeit poorly) that these traits were not a readily identifiable problem with the Governor of Texas in 2000, but how was it not obvious in 2004?