Should we trust George W. Bush?

Shortly after 9-11, TV talk-show host Sean Hannity said, "Thank God, we have an honest man in the White House!"

And when you think about it, a great deal of what you might believe about the so-called War on Terrorism is based on statements from George W. Bush. You have only his word, or that of someone in his administration:

Since America is endangered by the "you're either with me or against me" tactics of the Bush administration, it becomes vital to know whether we can trust the man in charge of our government.

Unfortunately, this is the same man who has referred to trillions of dollars in budget surpluses – even though the federal government hasn't had a budget surplus since 1956. (The appearance of any "surpluses" was created by taking excess receipts from Social Security and applying them to the general budget, even as the politicians swore they were protecting Social Security.)

Mr. Bush even has the chutzpah to refer with a straight face (well not exactly a straight face, he loves to smirk) to corporate executives "cooking the books." He neglects to mention that many of the corporate bookkeeping methods the politicians are so incensed about today were motivated by rules imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

And George Bush is the same man who in 2000 said he believed in "limited government." Most people assumed he meant a government limited by the Constitution. In fact, he took an oath in which he swore to uphold the Constitution.

But he's violated virtually every one of the first 10 Amendments – especially the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which are meant to impose precise limits on his power.

So his belief in "limited government" apparently means government limited to what he wants to do.

George Bush is the same man who in one breath tries to ingratiate himself with you by saying, "It's your money, not the politicians' money" – but in the next breath, he says he's entitled to one third of "your money."

George Bush is the same man who said he has learned more about political philosophy from Jesus of Nazareth than from anyone else. But he's proven by his actions that he doesn't really believe such things as "Blessed are the peacemakers." And "the meek" who Jesus said would inherit the earth are in Mr. Bush's eyes really just "collateral damage" in his plans to tell the world how it must live.

In these and in so many other ways, George Bush has proven that he's not an honest man – and that we shouldn't trust him with the safety of America.

In fact, Thomas Jefferson understood that we shouldn't put our trust in any politician. He said we should bind them down from mischief "by the chains of the Constitution." And a truly honest man wouldn't even ask you to trust him.

Contrary to what you might have thought, this isn't an article about George Bush. It's an article about you. Are you going to demean yourself by putting your faith in a man who has done so much to demonstrate the folly of such faith?

Are you going to let politicians stampede you into throwing away the Bill of Rights, based on "evidence" you never see, reassured by politicians who have proven that the truth is secondary to their own ambitions?

Don't you have enough respect for your own mind to make your own decisions, refuse to accept conclusions without evidence, and be something better than a cheerleader for a politician or a political party?

Please Read Before You Respond...

Not one single American has lost a right that they didn’t already have before this Administration took office.

That is the bottomline. Not Padilla, Not Taliban Johnny not the “I spent the first six months of my life in America” Saudi in Norfolk. Everything done with all of them is according to present law, constitutionally sound.

Until you have a single ruling made by the Supreme Court that anything currently taking place is unconstitutional then by definition the above statement is fact. It may well be that they do make a ruling in the future that something being done was unconstitutional but until that time you have no basis to assert that the Bush Administration is knowingly and intentionally violating anyone's constitutional rights.

Plain and simple.

There has been a tremendous amount of Federal Government creep in our country that has occurred ever since the civil war. It is something to vigilantly monitor and address but it is separate from the current discussion of preventing further terrorist attacks against our nation and removing Saddam Hussein from power. The spirit of the two and the motivating factors involved are wholly separate.

No law has been past removing a single right any American has. No law has been passed that unlawfully detains any American. The closest anyone can come to implying that possibly one has been detained is by linguistically asserting that nobody knows for certainty that there isn’t detained at GITMO an individual born in our country.

That is a completely laughable basis for asserting that a broad brush of anti-rights legislation [The only thing that takes away our rights] has taken hold of our Nation since September 11th . and to be discarded as nonsensical approach to discussing the subject.

TIPS isn’t a law and even if it were it wouldn’t remove a single right spelled out by our forefathers. Detaining Americans as Material witnesses is a legal practice and has been for decades.

Our Nation is under a very cogent threat of Biological as well as nuclear attack. This is not 1776 where we’ll be able to rally the minutemen to protect the Nation from a developing invasion. If it is Biological or Nuclear [The ultimate threats] it is fulfilled the minute the attack is launched and cannot be effectively thwarted or contained by our Government. Prevention is the only way to orient ourselves towards and overcome these threats.

Representing the Constitution and fighting to maintain its integrity is a necessary requirement in our Nation. Adolescent, knee-jerk outbursts at the hint of responsible Government action is not. The Government is tasked to promote the welfare and maintain the peace in our nation. The threat we face requires preemption. You don’t have to like that this threat doesn’t fit into your little 18th 19th or even 20th Century box but it is what it is.

One person here actually implied that there would be an acceptable honor is losing his life and the lives of hundreds of thousand, possibly millions of his fellow Americans to a Nuclear attack by terrorists if his actions in promoting his interpretation of the constitution enabled it to occur.

Simply amazing…

…and completely contrary to any decision that our founding Fathers would make. Does any one here want to assert that Thomas Jefferson would sacrifice millions of American lives [remember that there were only three million when he was around] because our government wasn’t doing exactly what he wanted it to do, how he wanted it done right here, right now?

Grow up.

The threats posed to us now develop in nanoseconds and are complete in their design in minutes. Methods simply have to be in place that can begin to grasp and prevent these threats from manifesting.

One single Nuclear detonation in Washington DC with our government in place would easily lead to worldwide economic collapse, invasion of Democratic South Korea, Israel, Taiwan and possibly even the United States itself by foreign powers as well as the immediate suspension of civil law and the ordinance of Military rule. You wanna see your rights chewed up…wait for that to happen…

None of that is far-fetched or unreasonable to predict. It is the logical process were terrorists to detonate a Nuclear bomb in our Nation’s capitol.

You may not like the fact that we now have these sort of responsibilities for other Nations but your personal like, dislike agreement or disagreement as to its constitutionality has no affect on the fact that the responsibilities are indeed there. Ignoring them or brushing them aside as unconstitutional is remarkably capricious.
At what point do you sober up and admit that the 1700’s are gone and they are never, ever coming back? At what point do you sober up and admit that this Government of ours or the relationships we now have with the rest of the World will never be dismantled from within to the size of our original government or the responsibilities shrunk to pre-1800 levels?

I am the first person to fight for our freedom of speech, our right to bare arms, free press, freedom of religion etc etc. and I am also the first one to admit that in order to defend all 280,000,000+ of us [Where we are today, not where you want us to be] from the threats we face, we are going to have to evaluate what priorities we have…

IMHO [And I suspect the Executive Branch of Governments opinion]the current priority is to defend this Nation from the threat of Nuclear Terrorism. It is not a manufactured threat, it is a very salient one and all else is subordinate to that defense, including your opinions, feelings and if needs be your unhindered rights.

Our Constitution is indeed the foundation that this Nation stands on but to honestly believe in the possibility of a return to the original state of national and international affairs that our Nation enjoyed when it was written and established is willfully infantile and ignorant. The argument for a return to our original Constitutional Government is by itself extremely unlikely but to argue for the desire now in light of the situation we are currently in is simply bitter and contrarian as well as not constructive.

If you do not agree then I find difficulty in you identifying yourself as either Conservative or American.

Step to the side and argue your purpose amongst yourselves but for now, Real Men are required to stand up and act [not talk] in order to defend our Nation. Right here, right now those actions will make our Nation safe…your rationale will not.

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