Accelerating the Decline and Fall

Bruce Schneier (another systems thinker) is as alarmed by the direction of the White House (with the machinery of the State in tow) as I am. It's important to note that the assumption of new powers by the state is a sign of extreme weakness and not of strength. It means that it can't retain control without destroying the moral and legal fabric of the very system from which it gains strength.

This is extremely serious and should be considered a defining moment of our system of government. If it is not (and it will likely not be) forcibly addressed soon, we are going to see an acceleration of the negative trends I am following.

In defending this secret spying on Americans, Bush said that he relied on his constitutional powers (Article 2) and the joint resolution passed by Congress after 9/11 that led to the war in Iraq. This rationale was spelled out in a memo written by John Yoo, a White House attorney, less than two weeks after the attacks of 9/11. It's a dense read and a terrifying piece of legal contortionism, but it basically says that the president has unlimited powers to fight terrorism. He can spy on anyone, arrest anyone, and kidnap anyone and ship him to another country ... merely on the suspicion that he might be a terrorist. And according to the memo, this power lasts until there is no more terrorism in the world.

Yoo starts by arguing that the Constitution gives the president total power during wartime.... This is not a partisan issue between Democrats and Republicans; it's a president unilaterally overriding the Fourth Amendment, Congress and the Supreme Court. Unchecked presidential power has nothing to do with how much you either love or hate George W. Bush. You have to imagine this power in the hands of the person you most don't want to see as president, whether it be Dick Cheney or Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michael Moore or Ann Coulter.

And this George W. Bush quote (video and transcript), from December 18, 2000, is just too surreal not to reprint: "If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator."

Comments

[tim fong]

I've read the memo, and I've seen Yoo speak in person. He takes what lawyers refer to as a calm and measured tone. That doesn't change the fact that the guy is a total apologist for unchecked executive power.
He's on the faculty at Boalt Hall (Berkeley) and I have it on good account that he is quite unhappy there--what did he expect, he's a suck-up to authoritarianism.

[mark safranski]

Well, Boalt isn't exactly a hotbed of centrist legal thought, much less a bastion of the Federalist Society.

[tim fong]

Mark,
Certainly you are right. I just think it's amusing that he chose to take a professorship at Berkeley, that's all. With the schools reputation, he must have known it was going to be a hostile environment.

That said, I am also surprised (and perhaps I shouldn't be) that the Federalist society folks are not all over the surveillance state/NSA wiretapping issue more than I've heard so far.

Makes you wonder what it's really all about.

[mark safranski]

hi Tim

Well, here's one reaction:

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/20/conservative-scholars-argue-bush%e2%80%99s-wiretapping-is-an-impeachable-offense/

There is a right way and a wrong way to go about things. I think the best way to understand how the Bush administration functions operationally is that, like a layer cake, there is a thin icing of very, very, smart people at the top underneath whom you have a spongy layer of mediocrity. Underneath that layer with the top bureaucratic careerists you begin getting quite smart once again.

Putting loyalty and yes-man behavior above smarts for the deputy position levels has been costly.