RoR: Forum

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Thursday, May 31, 2012 - 2:12pm

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I just learned that Obama personally signs off on every drone killing.

There is a 'kill list' put together by military intelligence and, during the reign of Bush the Younger, the list was put together and executed without specific presidential approval or specific presidential oversight. GW Bush just trusted that the military would do its job well, and then he got out of the way and let them do the job. He wanted to know about all the details after the fact, but did not direct the 'killing' process "before the fact." Obama is different. He prefers not just to have, but to be, the final say. Like Caesar, he wants to stand at the perch over the gladiator arena, and give the fighting gladiators either the "thumbs up" (sparing them) or the "thumbs down" (executing them). He personally signs off on each kill (or personally removes names from the kill list, if he doesn't want someone on the list).

This strikes me as the behavior of a brutal tyrant -- someone who prefers to have final say over whether someone dies or not. It makes me think back to that time when Obama signed an expansion of the Patriot Act -- one which allows presidents to sidestep the courts altogether, and indefinitely detain anyone, citizen or not, without court approval. He assured anyone who would believe him that he would never use this immense power which he was officially approving. How do we know, though? Is there a mechanism whereby the citizenry would or could become informed of a detention that can stay off of the official books (one which does not need to be written up in the court system). Who is to say that some US citizens haven't already been detained?

Obama's insistence on being "in charge" of all of the drone kills should make folks worry that he might not be telling the whole truth about the recent expansion of the Patriot Act.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/31, 2:13pm)

Post 1

Thursday, May 31, 2012 - 5:36pm

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The only real brake on a total abuse of power (disappearing regular citizens, or having them killed over ideological differences, as examples) is a fear of a massive public disapproval.

That disapproval is only feared because we still have a large degree of freedom of speech, a free press, freedom of assembly and the degree of voter fraud hasn't been significant... so far. As long as we can talk, write, organize, and then vote... our approval or disapproval makes a difference. The minute they no longer care about our disapproval, because we have been muzzled in some fashion, or our vote has been side-tracked in some way, we will see a rapid increase in the degree of totalitarianism and the degree of brutality.

Central control of the country is coming in bit by bit on the lies of environmentalism, social justice, care for the poor, equality of outcomes, etc... all of the justifications for control. But when the people no longer need to be fooled and bamboozled, those altruistic positions will all be unneeded and their true believers tossed aside like used tissue paper.

When totalitarianism reaches that state it is the Stalin-like characters that step into control.

Obama, The Patriot Act, and the Drone killings