Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
With apologies to Archbishop of Canterbury John Morton, I’m offering this version of his famous “fork”:
You’re a young idealist standing for the highest office in the land. Against many odds you’ve offered a candidacy of hope and change to an electorate tired of both war and the prior Administration that got them into those wars. There are rumors of widespread atrocities committed by that Administration in response to a horrific terrorist attack on American soil where thousands of your countrymen died. In your capacity as an US Senator, you’ve been briefed on several of these and you see a pattern developing. You’re a Constitutionalist; a lawyer; and a principled man, but you recognize the nation faces a real threat of nuclear holocaust at the hands of committed, well-funded terrorists supported and protected by renegade states and even some of our allies. These terrorists have a fanatical zeal and value martyrdom above self-preservation. You believe that if they acquire weapons of mass destruction the question will not be if millions of people will die, but which millions of people will die.
Riding a groundswell of promise and belief in your promises to restore American values, the electorate sends you to the nation’s capitol to change the way things have been done. During the course of the election, it has become clear that the drain on the economy caused by war, corruption, and old-fashioned greed has left the country in dire financial straits.
On January 16th you are briefed by the nation’s intelligence communities. You are told definitively that the intelligence community has engaged in extraordinary measures to fight America’s enemies which you conclude amount to torture, illegal renditions, detaining innocent people, and even Executive Orders approving the killing of persons deemed enemy combatants. You’ve inherited a Gulag within sight of the American coast and during the campaign you’ve vowed to close it. You are told that many senior members of the permanent intelligence community were aware of and approved the illegal measures employed in defense of the country. Losing these people would severely cripple efforts to defend the country as they form a sizable amount of the intelligence community’s institutional knowledge and memory. You’re also told that these senior intelligence officers have been promised immunity for their actions by the earlier Administration.
You convene your economic advisors who explain to you that the emergency measures adopted by your predecessor and designed to prop up the failing economy may well work but it will take time,and any shock to the nation could disturb this fragile trust building process. If the stimulus fails, the resulting shock could send the nation and Europe into a full-blown depression crippling the efforts to fight terrorism.
Moderate governments in the Mideast have come to you seeking aid to fight the fundamentalist movements that are fueling terrorist recruitment and sponsorship. They tell you that to continue the fight means more money and intelligence from the US or their efforts will be severely handicapped.
What do you do?
A. Continue the illegal policies of the past Administration reasoning that this is war and that your primary goal is to defend the nation at all costs. These repugnant policies seemed to have had some effect in curtailing the terrorist threat and your calling off the dogs is a real risk to your viability as a leader if you’re wrong and another deadly attack occurs on US soil. Another successful attack could throw the markets into a death spiral and the recovery might not occur for decades. You continue with the stimulus program and avoid any investigation of earlier illegal acts concluding that any shock to the fragile economy caused by the turmoil will reap more evil than it alleviates. You also avoid any investigation to eliminate the possibility of crippling the intelligence community. You share money and both illegally obtained and legally obtained intelligence with the friendly Arab states.
B. You reason that principle trumps expediency and stop all illegality. You immediately order investigations into the prior Administration’s handling of the war. You make public the results and bring indictments against wrongdoers. You do so even in the face of prior pledges of immunity reasoning they are void ad initio given our treaty obligations and on principles of international law. You make Herculean efforts to replace the intelligence officers lost to the investigations and you build morale by explaining your policies as being in the nation’s long-term best interest. You do what you can to stabilize the economy but you will not compromise in your efforts to prosecute those who have violated the law. You tell friendly states and Europe you understand their concerns about such a policy but you adhere to the adage that “let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
C. You adopt a middle ground approach reasoning it is best for the country that the economic recovery not be affected by criminal investigations of the American intelligence community and the prior Administration. You believe any move otherwise could lead to a weakening of American strength at the worst time and make that nuclear holocaust against an American city more likely. You change the illegal policies of the prior Administration to stop torture, curtail renditions and if absolutely necessary only to countries that will not use torture. You employ death warrants abroad and only against those your intelligence agencies tell you present a clear and present danger to the US. You fully support friendly states abroad against extremists and provide intelligence to them as well as cash.
D. Your Choice.
Now, the tough part: Defend your choice — and no changing facts that you don’t like in our “hypothetical situation.”
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
@Mike S: Am I that sure of my beliefs that I would be willing to counter “expert” opinion,
In my view, you do not have to be that certain of your beliefs, you simply have to be certain (as I am) of a guiding principle, as follows:
Experts that work for you have to be good enough to explain their positions to you. They need to explain their analysis, and their assumptions, and their axiomatic ideas of of what is unquestionably true. They need to be smart enough that if you challenge those assumptions, they can defend them, and if you reject their axioms, they can either prove they do not need it, or can come to the same conclusion using your axioms.
The point of hiring experts, in intelligence or economics or law or anything else, is to get them to develop policy they believe will work that is consistent with your morality and fundamental belief system. They must be smart enough to work their system and give you the best possible results within the constraints imposed by you. If they cannot work with your constraints, and cannot show you why your constraints are impossible or contradictory or too unreasonable, then they aren’t really the “experts” they claim to be; they are dogmatists.
As for personal mortality; it isn’t a possibility, it is a certainty. At least that is my belief. The good one can do and the enjoyment of life one may have is finite. What is the difference between whether I live four more years or forty? Really none except what I can accomplish in that time. I have already faced my mortality, the only question remaining is what I might get for it in trade, and since I believe in no afterlife, the benefits are entirely psychic in nature. I have foregone greater financial reward for greater psychic reward already; I could certainly see sacrificing the rest of my own future in a bid to save the country.
(I can, however, imagine a more impossible demand that I could not risk: Are you ready to sacrifice the lives of your wife, your children, your grandchildren, your siblings, nieces, nephews, inlaws and all of your closest friends in the bargain? Because they can prove to you they are serious without harming a hair on your head, or even raising public suspicion.)
I would pick B ideally but thinking practically I would pick C as I don’t think B would have turned out so well. The American people for the most did not and do not support taking action against Bush. The political turmoil would have been overwhelming. The CIA and the SOCJFCOM-Pentagon would have rebelled. It is unlikely that you would have an indictment by now.
Mike,
One of my favorite rock songs and albums!
Gene,,
I agree that actually following the rule of law and punishing those that authorized and carried out torture would have shown the Middle East that the United States really walks the talk.
“Being the President is an inherently dangerous job. If you’re not willing to assume all the risks? Stay out of the kitchen.”
Gene,
That and what you wrote above it are true. However, I know you understand that we have had few Presidents with the courage of those convictions. My guess is that there are very few people available for the position today with that fortitude, who are willing to run and/or could get elected. I agree with “B” as I’ve stated, but I think the reality of what most of us know is that we are unlikely to have a choice to elect such a person. Give that, the right thing to do becomes a abstraction sadly and we have to make choices between bad and worse. Comes the revolution, we will be able to change things, but when is it coming and can we trust its leaders to do the right thing. 🙂
Mike,
Still all of B plus some other actions.
Because without the Rule of Law and the equitable pursuit of justice, the vision Jefferson laid out in the Declaration and the Founders codified in the Constitution is meaningless. We need not destroy the Rule of Law or the pursuit of justice to protect national security anymore than we need to sacrifice our Constitutional rights on the altar of national security. That’s the shadow cast large upon the wall of political discourse by little men who would subjugate us all to slake their boundless egos.
Ask yourself this question: Would the “war on terror” have been adversely affected by putting Bush/Cheney and their criminal cohorts on trial? Would pursuing equitable justice under the Rule of Law in any way hindered practical strategic and tactical response to the attacks of 9/11?
If you can come up with a reasonable answer other than “no”, I’d like to hear it. Because, to the contrary, I think showing the world that our laws are equitable and based firmly upon the ideals of the pursuit of equitable justice under the Rule of Law would have sent a stronger message to any potential terrorist than what we did which, to be clear, was giving the terrorists what they wanted: tacit admission that the principles and guarantees of rights that this nation was founded upon are disposable in the face of threats and in the name of fear-mongering and political expediency. The terrorist won at a minimum a partial victory the very first time one of our rights was eroded and when Pelosi said, “Impeachment is off the table.”
Being the President is an inherently dangerous job. If you’re not willing to assume all the risks? Stay out of the kitchen.
Tony,
Just two replies to what you have written. The first is that you and I have a very different concept of what political systems really are. You see them as a set of guiding principles/precedents, for good or ill, that determine the direction of nations and lives. I see them as the smokescreen set up by people as their will to power impels them to try for higher places on the human pyramid of status.
This is not to say that I don’t have ideals and beliefs as to how the world should be run. I am also quite committed to the Constitution the Founding Fathers devised as a good way to handle human affairs. However, to me the rot in human society is our sublimation of the fact that we tend to organize ourselves as our ancestral cousins “The Great Apes”, into a social pyramid. Therefore to me the cure for humanity’s ills is for us to evolve beyond our “Apish” selves. All political solutions then, are to me necessary palliatives, until humanity can mature. However, how this evolution can be helped along has not yet revealed itself to me.
Secondly, re: DADT. My belief is that the aversion to homosexuals is very strong within the upper ranks of our Armed Forces. I believe that despite the fact that the President is the titular CINC, his orders are not always obeyed. Getting the armed forces to accept DADT was to me therefore an indication that there is still some residual power that President’s have, but it is quite restricted.
Generally, most commenters have chose option “B” and as I stated all else being equal that would also be my choice. What perplexes me is that all else isn’t equal. Many who choose “B”, I know from their history here, also believe that a ruthless elite has pretty much ruled this country for quite some time. I also know that they accept the fact that most of those involved in our political process as contestants are as much guided by their egotism and will to power, as they are by their base ideals.
What I know about the human mind is that our ability to rationalize our egotism (I’M THE ONE) and our will to power (I’M NEEDED TO RUN THINGS!) is limitless. Thus one can be an “Idealistic Person” and at the same time not even be aware of the inner forces compelling them to seek
higher office. Indeed, I believe that most people who have done evil (i.e. Hitler, Stalin, GW Bush, etc.) actually have convinced themselves they were doing good.
We come back then to the hypothetical Mark has presented. This fictional, idealistic young President, is on a conscious level convinced that he can make all these changes and that justifies his Presidential run. He isn’t cynical and he isn’t lying, merely sublimating/ignoring realities of which his intellect should have made him aware. His supporters; confidants; advisers in getting him elected all seem good people, with the best interests of the country at heart, even though given political realities many are creatures of the kind of wealth needed to finance political campaigns.
After election he is now being briefed by the “Experts”, be it in “Intelligence”, “Defense”, “Foreign Policy”, and “Economics”. Their job is to apprise him of the “reality” of his situation and the “reality” of his options. That their version of “reality” is perhaps quite skewed to their own self-interests is but their own rationalizations and sublimation’s. The Intelligence/Defense establishment accepts the wisdom of long held “Cold War” doctrines and sees all the world as a potential danger to the US. While many writing here are convinced that the threat of nuclear attack on these shores is remote, the “experts” think otherwise and of course they have the “facts” and their own “analysis” to prove it. In fact they are so convinced in their own beliefs, ideals if you will, that it is possible to imagine that they would see any President trying to limit their actions as a “traitor” to the country and might feel justified in taking extraordinary steps to eliminate this “traitor”, to keep them from doing harm to our beloved country. I believe this is not only possible, but has happened many times before.
The above was made in the assumption that also adding to this situation are the schemes of people of a less idealistic nature who are determined to assert the needs of their own self interests. I believe that the Bush Family represent such a group whose reality is their innate right to power, accompanied by the ruthlessness necessary to pursue their aims. This is analogous to the idea of Royal Dynasties acting to preserve their lineage and preserve their prerogatives.
In choosing “B”, in my opinion, you are choosing to demand that any President be an incorruptible idealist, totally convinced of their own vision whose ideals supersede their own lives, or that of their families. I would respond by asking you just how many of our past Presidents were such people and for those few who were, what were their fates? I would also wonder if such a person wouldn’t be as dangerous to us all as a Hitler?
From Saul Alinsky:
“One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’ If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.”
Finally, to my mind inherent in Mark’s post was the need for all of us to answer from our very personal perspective just exactly what we would personally risk for our ideals, if we are demanding that a President take on that risk. Personally, I refuse to demand that someone else bear the burden of a risk that I wouldn’t personally bear. I have faced grave consequences in my career and life for maintaining my ideals. However, the gravity of those consequences were merely economic and/or social.
To my mind I have stuck to my ideals and personally faced those risks. Without details, one was going from being a fast rising star in NYC’s Special Services for Children (Child Welfare) to being “blackballed” within the Agency, for refusing to follow the instructions of a powerful Deputy Commissioner, which I felt were not in the best interests of our mission.
I’ve never been faced with a choice though, of having my life threatened by standing up for my ideals. Nor have I ever been faced with a possibility that if I made the wrong choice on an issue, that perhaps millions of people would be harmed. Honestly I’m not sure if I could have remained philosophically true to myself in that position. I am older now and have faced the possibility of my mortality and perhaps I would stand up to that threat. Am I that sure of my beliefs that I would be willing to counter “expert” opinion, that if I go against their advice I might be killing millions by not taking certain repugnant actions?
Perhaps many of you are stronger than I am and can say with not a shred of doubt in your mind, that you personally would face any mortal threat to yourself, or many others, based solely on your idealistic beliefs.
If that is the case then “B” is your option.
I will also note that the founders believed it was acceptable to take a loss to preserve principle; for example to free guilty men in order to prevent the risk of imprisoning an innocent men.
Hence our demand for unanimity in trial by jury, an uncertainty of one in twelve is sufficient to let the guilty walk in order to ensure the innocent do not suffer (or in the case of a hung jury, to defer the decision to a different set of twelve jurors).
The Constitution is not a suicide pact, that is true enough, but simultaneously, not every threat is sufficient reason to ignore it, including the threat of letting murderers walk free and murder again. Principle does trump expediency, and Principle trumps the certainty of eleven versus one.
The thing about the scenario, and in real life, is that you cannot prove the negative, did what Bush and this ‘hypothetical’ pres stop,nuclear war or terrorism? Their argument would be ‘Yes. I know that because we have not had either on our shore.” Who can argue with that? Then the follow up: “Were it not for indefinite detention, warrantless searches, etc we would have had at least one of the two so these actions I took, that sure look unconstitutional on the face of them, were responsible and necessary.”
@Mike S: The corporatists do not care much about gay issues; there is a small side issue with being forced to provide gay partner benefits, but they really want to stop all benefits, period.
From the corporatist point of view, DADT is a military issue, they really do not care, or eliminating it can be seen as a positive, after all it slightly increases the amount of cannon fodder they need to perpetuate a war. From their sociopathic point of view the soldiers are expendable lives, they are not outraged or concerned by any kind of sexual activity in the ranks, as long as their wars get fought, the ammunition is expended, the money flows and the coveted natural resources get secured and controlled.
One has to presume the hypothetical points are true; so I will assume for the sake of Argument we are not talking about Obama, who lied about all of this stuff, and instead we are talking about the fantasy Obama painted:
A young idealist, a lawyer and Constitutionalist, that according to the hypothetical was making his promises to restore American values/b> despite already knowing that torture was being used and the economy was in trouble.
Is it fair to assume this idealist lawyer has any brains? Because if he does, and he is a Constitutionalist, then presumably he has already thought through what can go wrong. Presumably he does not believe that he must work with criminals within his own ranks in order to keep the country safe.
An Idealist Constitutionalist Lawyer (call it ICL) should not subscribe to the notion that ill-defined and amorphous “noble ends” justify routinely evil, institutionalized criminal means.
Even though as President our ICL must vow to defend the Constitution, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Even Idealists can recognize that, but the logical approach to that dilemma is simple: If one believes that violating the Constitution is a necessity in order to save the country, then one must be prepared to sacrifice one’s life to execute that violation, and throw one’s self on the mercy of the country.
Thus, when told “Losing these people would severely cripple efforts to defend the country as they form a sizable amount of the intelligence community’s institutional knowledge and memory,” the ICL can reject the claim outright. Our ICL would know that in Nuremburg we hung German officers that claimed they were “just following orders,” it is not a valid excuse for committing war crimes. No matter how much sympathy it garners from the public, the implications are inevitable; all responsibility can always be diverted upstream to one man that can be hung only once (if at all). The millions of atrocities committed would be excused.
It is the responsibility of officers in service to the United States to follow the Constitution in defending it. If they violate it then they do it by choice, if they follow an order to violate it they follow that order by choice, and they have chosen to risk the consequences of that in order to defend their country: Just as much as we demand soldiers that have volunteered to serve risk potentially lethal or crippling consequences to defend their country.
What idealists do not countenance is the corrosive cowardice that undermines the Constitution, presenting it as the law of the land while institutionally granting routine immunity for disregarding it so the country can be run as a criminal enterprise.
A smart ICL will also recognize that the “institutional knowledge and memory” of the the Intelligence community is never vested in one man alone, or even a cadre of men.
REAL organizations are holographic; the information necessary to create any position can be reproduced by those answering to that position. No man is indispensable, because every man might die of a stroke at any moment, and need replacement, perhaps by one of his underlings.
The institutional knowledge of the CIA or FBI or NSA can be functionally reproduced by the field agents of those organizations. The premise that we need the heads is simply untrue: If you cut off the top 10%, the remaining 90% can form a new top 10%, and having seen what happened to the old one, a new top 10% that will better adhere to the Constitution.
If, as an ICL, you truly believe the top 10% was acting in defense of the country, and you believe they have knowledge that needs to be retained, then the answer is also logically simple: In return for that knowledge, you can (as President) have a list of charges read against them, present the defense that you believe they were acting in defense of the country, and simultaneously pardon them but remove them from office and command. It might take guts, but it would be the right thing to do.
A real organization cannot have anybody be indispensable, ever. If the organization ever rests on one man and collapses forever if that one man dies, it is bound to die sooner or later anyway. When we design organizations we design them to be robust, not fragile flowers destroyed by the first ill wind that blows.
Further, the idealist does not sacrifice his ideals for money. There are many ways to save an economy, and since the economy rests on the middle class (which is also the source of most entrepreneurship that results in small businesses that generate the vast majority of new job), if money and bailouts are a necessity, that is where they should be directed; because that is where they will be spent rather than saved or put in the stock market or hedge funds betting against economic recovery.
An Idealist Constitutionalist that wants to recover an economy will invest in the Constitutionally provided for investment, “the General Welfare,” which we can justifiably translate into infrastructure of all kinds, and freely available education, from trade school training to higher education and fundamental research in biology, materials and energy that can benefit everybody.
Infrastructure creates jobs, it is not just roads and bridges, it is the electrical grid, waterways and dams, communications super highways, docks, wind farms, thermal solar farms and other green energy systems, trains and inner city public transportation, from hydrogen fueled buses to subways and monorails.
If as an ICL President you are really worried about terrorists getting a nuclear bomb, there are many ways to deal with that without shooting the country in the heart by destroying civil liberties. Close the borders, and deploy the national guard to guard them. (The USA has about 8000 miles of border to protect, we have about 475,000 soldiers in the national guard. We could literally deploy an armed national guardsman every 1/4 mile, 24/7, with about 100,000 of them. Not to say that is how we should do it, but to illustrate that it is possible to deploy enough personnel to make the borders essentially impenetrable at reasonable cost, even if they were new hires. If you wonder what that would cost, probably $5B a year, or an average of $50/yr per taxpayer.)
The first sentence of Option B, “You reason that principle trumps expediency and stop all illegality,” can be executed without committing either economic or Constitutional suicide. Principle does trump expediency. If circumstances demand the Constitution be violated, then those that do it must do it out of patriotism and personal conviction that the country is in immediate danger and accept the consequences, which may be dire. The founders did the same, they broke the laws of King George and pledged their lives, fortunes and honor for what they believed was right.
We cannot accept the excuse that everybody was just following orders, violating the law of the land is always a personal choice. When I entered the military I took a vow to protect and defend the Constitution, not to obey any illegal orders, in fact I received explicit instruction in how to refuse an illegal order. Keeping a job is not a valid excuse when you have literally pledged your very life to defending the Constitution.
The President has the power to pardon crimes, even murders. Let the crimes be shown. Let the President have the guts to pardon them or not. Keeping crimes secret and unpunished is unprincipled and a recipe for further lawlessness, secrecy corrodes principle and endangers people, it becomes its own excuse for persecution, because the only “principle” that remains is that you can do anything you can keep secret, and thus the maximum power is obtained with the maximum secrecy, and government becomes a criminal enterprise where only the expendables get punished; and many of them, like the fall guys at Abu Ghraib, really were “just following orders.”
I choose Option B, without any of the dire consequences. Principle trumps expediency, and unless I am assassinated by the criminals within my own ranks, I can save the country without any sacrifice of the principles upon which it was founded.
Mike S.
DADT??
B.
I’m leaning toward B. There are additional steps I would have taken, but all of the elements of B would have been in my plan of action.
Further on JFK:
He fired Joint Chiefs Chairman Lemnitzer (sent him to SHAPE) who had sent him a litmus test in the form of Operation Northwood ** (a lowgrade paste-up not worthy of a lieutenant’s signature). That confirmed JCS suspicions about him (Lemnitzer was not alone on this, not at all).
Further, Kennedy had issued an executive order which told the Treasury to start printing bills, in competition with the FED.
He also did not pay up on his father’s deal with the Chicago mob, and slipped Bobby free on them (and Hoover).
You are indeed correct (and beautifully put too) in all you write Mike S.
But for my part, I have concluded that in fact the President is a figurehead, with no real power. Why aspire to such an office? Perhaps it is a well kept secret. Or being top dog, no that can’t be the reason. The job, whatever it is, is a killer, even if you’re not assassinated.
I’ll never forget Clinton’s SOTUS when a gargoyle Gingrich smirked at Clinton’s discomfort. The discomfort I presumed to come from his dismay as new President upon being given the facts of life. It is gut feeling, not facts, Take it or leave it, it’s my humble opinion.
**Operation Northwood is available as a facsimile copy on the net.
Lemnitzer ordered all copies to be destroyed. Fortunately, his boss McNamara, did not do it; and it was published in 1989 from his files.
Idealist707,
We’re so far apart on the President’s power, but my guess is there’s some limited leeway as long as you don’t take it too far. Eliminating DADT, was not favored for instance by many of the top brass.
B.
“Riding a groundswell of promise and belief in your promises to restore American values, the electorate sends you to the nation’s capitol to change the way things have been done.”
The young idealist should do the job s/he was elected (hired) to do.
——
Also, if you do the right thing (B) either a good or bad outcome is to be expected. If you do the wrong thing, either a good or bad outcome is to be expected. IMO one might as well always do the right thing (or try to) and work for the good outcome.
Is one to assume that the “young idealist” took the “oath of office?”
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.””
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States
“The oath of office of the President of the United States is an oath or affirmation required by the United States Constitution before the President begins the execution of the office. The wording is specified in Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
mespo727272 1, January 29, 2012 at 10:14 am
AY:
…. smarter, too. 😀
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😉
We are all no longer The Universal Smedley any longer, just doin’ the video game.
Just sayin’ …
Choice E: Choose the Evil ground. Lie to the American people, exaggerate the threat and simultaneously ignore any real threat. Hand money to corporations while pretending to protect people from them. Ignore the need to inspect the most porous entry points in the country, the shipping containers and the wide-open coasts and virtually transparent Canadian border, the way that REAL terrorists and bombs would come in, in favor of strip-searching grandmothers and toddlers and the mentally disabled in airports. Because, of course, real inspection of shipping containers would cost companies money.
Extend the wars you learned were really just profiteering opportunities for companies to be paid millions of dollars for products that cost them about a thousand dollars to make, with no accountability if the products failed and killed a few soldiers or innocent people. It is the fog of war, and there is no telling what really happens in that fog. Companies like it for a reason.
Play on the fear created by exaggerating the threat to strip people of their right to be free from unwarranted search, of their right to free speech, of their right to assembly and protest, of their right to use public spaces freely, and of their right to privacy in any communications. In fact, just redefine the entire justice system, so if you declare somebody a terrorist, you act as judge, jury, and executioner (literally).
Accelerate and expand the police state, and the surveillance state. Tell them it is for their own good. Corrupt the media with the promise of lucrative access to your royal court, so they will applaud your courage in becoming a dictator.
Protect the rich from prosecution, hand public resources into the hands of private exploitation, and brutally punish any low-level insiders that try to tell the truth about what you are doing.
Instead of leveling with people about the economy, and the rip off they have suffered, just let the Federal Reserve print money and give it away by the trillion bailing out the 1% that would be worst hit by their own speculative excess, so you can delay the inevitable financial collapse by further robbing the populace of future value without telling them.
You learn that you cannot tell them, really, because the truth would stop the flow of profits your true masters are enjoying; the people would demand an end to their little game, because the people are the victims of it. They need to keep believing the problems are always somebody else’s problems for as long as possible.
And while you are at it, use the debt you created in those profiteering wars as an excuse to crush the future of the country, by stripping it of its social safety net, robbing workers of what they were promised by the new deal, and doing nothing to stem the flood of jobs leaving the middle class because the corporations prefer the lawless countries, where there are no taxes or worker protections or safety precautions demanded, so workers can be driven like slaves and discarded like toilet paper when they are used up, without any consequences to worry about.
Or we could call that option D: Join the DARK side, Luke. The power is seductive.
Anonymously Yours 1, January 29, 2012 at 10:13 am
Revered Dredd,
I see you have spoken and we are all freer because of this….
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😉