"The bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America..."No mention of the Constitution. No mention of democracy. No mention of freedom or equality. Only "total allegiance" to the U.S.A. Dissent will not be tolerated.
Oh, and apparently your total allegiance will be required whether or not you are a citizen.
Google Can't Do This Yet
ReplyDeleteLet me translate this for you. When President Trump says, "The bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America..." that includes:
1. allegiance to the Constitution
2. allegiance to democracy
3. allegiance to freedom
4. allegiance to equality
You see, President Trump believes that the "United States of America" stands for and champions freedom, equality, and democracy through its Constitution and its traditions.
President Trump has a positive view of the United States.
This is unlike former President Obama, who thought the United States was some sort of global criminal.
I suggest reading up on Hedges v. Obama. From the intro:
ReplyDelete>> The legislation permits the U.S. government to indefinitely detain people "who are part of or substantially support Al Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces engaged in hostilities against the United States".[7]
>>
>> The plaintiffs contend that Section 1021(b)(2) of the law allows for detention of citizens and permanent residents taken into custody in the U.S. on "suspicion of providing substantial support" to groups engaged in hostilities against the U.S. such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban[6] respectively that the NDAA arms the U.S. military with the ability to imprison indefinitely journalists, activists and human-rights workers based on vague allegations.[8]
>>
>> The principal allegation made by the plaintiffs against the NDAA is that the vagueness of critical terms in the NDAA could be interpreted by the U.S. federal government in a way that authorizes them to label journalists and political activists who interview or support outspoken critics of the Obama administration's policies as "covered persons," meaning that they have given "substantial support" to terrorists or other "associated groups".[9]
Let's be careful with what we attribute to Trump which should largely be attributed to earlier political momentum. There is also the extra-judicial killing of US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. Allegedly, he posed "an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and that capture was “not feasible." (WaPo on legal reasoning) From the LA Times:
>> Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU lawyer who filed the suit, hailed the memo’s release but called its contents “disturbing ... ultimately an argument that the president can order targeted killings of Americans without ever having to account to anyone outside the executive branch.” (Memo justifying drone killing of American Al Qaeda leader is released)
If we fail to understand what any given politician can and cannot do to alter the current political trajectory, we will hamstring our abilities to exert the kind of change we would like to see.
@Luke: I was very critical of the Obama administration too, at one point going so far as to raise the question of whether Obama was guilty of war crimes as a result of his ordering the execution of Anwar al-Awlaki.
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.rongarret.info/2010/04/oabama-orders-hit.html
There are acquaintances of mine (Democrats) who still refuse to speak to me as a result.
Good to see, sorry to hear. One of the lessons of the OT is that only a remnant survives—the rest simply aren't willing to face the truth. The majority insist on their self-righteousness right up to the end. I would like to disbelieve this claim about humanity, but the evidence seems to support it.
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