{"id":171,"date":"2006-02-15T22:38:09","date_gmt":"2006-02-16T03:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2006\/02\/15\/the-point\/"},"modified":"2006-02-16T00:34:40","modified_gmt":"2006-02-16T05:34:40","slug":"the-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2006\/02\/15\/the-point\/","title":{"rendered":"the point&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p align=\"justify\">As tempting as it is to join in the endless pointing out that the Vice President just shot a friend in the face with a shotgun, there&#8217;s an equally compelling drive to stick to the point. Which point? <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">The only real point is that the Bush Administration, without really telling us, is dead set on changing our basic form of government, without asking. What are our priorities? <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">\n<ol>\n<li><strong>The Unitary Executive:<\/strong> This was only recently declared, but is probably underneath everything else. President Bush has simply assumed a level of power accorded to a dictator. At first it looked as if he was operating within our tri-partite system, and winning every round because his party controlled Congress. But lately, it&#8217;s become obvious that he is assuming powers that even transcend this legislative advantage.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pugalism:<\/strong> America has never been pugalistic in the world in the way we are now.\n<ul>\n<li>It is now our policy to engage in &quot;preemptive&quot; warfare.<\/li>\n<li>It is our policy to torture prisoners of war.<\/li>\n<li>It is our policy to eavesdrop on American Citizens without judicial overview.<\/li>\n<li>It is now our policy to ignore the International Community eg the U.N.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Secrecy:<\/strong> In the past, our policy has been to have an open government. Secrecy was reserved for matters of security and defense. Now, secrecy is our usual policy. Open-ness is the exception. It is considered &quot;whistle blowing&quot; to let the people know what goes on in government. The result has been rather remarkable levels of corruption and direct lawlessness.     <\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\">None of these major changes in government were the result of a mandate from the people. They are part of an idiosyncratic ideology of a surprisingly small minority who found a way to engender support from an unknowing and gullible majority. <\/p>\n<table width=\"95%\" height=\"114\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t give a goddamn,&rdquo; Bush retorted. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Mr. President,&rdquo; one aide in the meeting said. &ldquo;There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,&rdquo; Bush screamed back. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just a goddamned piece of paper!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.capitolhillblue.com\/artman\/publish\/article_7779.shtml\"><strong>Capital Hill Blue<\/strong><\/a><br \/>     Doug Thompson<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p align=\"justify\">Scandal chasing is, in fact, a diversion. Who cares if a bunch of rich Republicans want to get together and shoot each other after beer and bar-b-que on a game preserve? It&#8217;s the Treason at the core of their assault on our government that&#8217;s the point&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As tempting as it is to join in the endless pointing out that the Vice President just shot a friend in the face with a shotgun, there&#8217;s an equally compelling drive to stick to the point. Which point? The only real point is that the Bush Administration, without really telling us, is dead set on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}