The End of Democracy?
A sermon preached for the congregation at Eliot Unitarian Chapel
in St Louis, MO on October 28, 2007
A German citizen claims the CIA had him abducted him in Macedonia in late 2003 on suspicion of being a terrorist, and then he was sent to Afghanistan, where he was repeatedly beaten until his release in 2004. His appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was refused on the grounds of protecting state secrets from being disclosed in open court. (The Week, 10/19/07, p6).
I recently read that in a news magazine called The Week. It reprints insights from the left, right and center of the political spectrum around various issues, so the reader can make up their own mind about things. And you can learn what the left and right think of various issues.
That particular piece was in a section they have called, “boring but important.” And in a way, that’s how I think of democracy in America– boring but important. It’s boring because we pretty much take for granted our democratic rights, freedoms, & responsibilities.
It’s important because the rule of free speech, a free press, the free exercise of religion; the idea of one person, one vote; the right to a trial by jury of one’s peers; these things help form the basic underpinnings of democracy. In times of crisis in this country, these basic rights can be curtailed. But then the idea is– the rights are restored.
Our president and congress have been delegated the power to go to war with other countries– to kill people we believe to be our enemies. When a war is being fought, those conducting the war are going to want as wide a leeway as they can get in order to assure the most favorable outcome.
Ideally, we trust our leaders to do what is right for our country. When we disagree, we don’t take on arms to overthrow our government, we use the democratic process to make change happen.
Lest we forget, we are in war time right now. We have troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And this war is different than previous wars. This is a “global war on terror.” It doesn’t seem to have the clear end points of previous wars– WW 2 ended with the defeat of Germany, Italy, and Japan.
But the current wars are "open ended" according to our president. This means there is no end in sight. This means special war time rules won't have an expiration date– instead they become the new 'normal.' That’s pretty scary.
Should our democratic rules apply to possible terrorists in other countries? What about possible American terrorists at home? What limits to power?
On the one hand, terrorists don’t use the play book of conventional military strategy– they often aim for civilians and use civilians as shields, for example. On the other hand, if in order to fight terrorism, we adopt the terrorist play book, then we become the thing we say we hate.
How much free speech and dissent should be allowed in war time?
Increasingly, people are saying that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have lost whatever initial justification they had, and that the United States is wasting billions of dollars and thousands of American lives in a doomed effort that only continues to exist because of a lack of political leadership to admit mistakes and bring these wars to a conclusion.
But people who speak out against the war, using free speech, people who are critical of the war and its leaders or the war's execution, can be labeled traitors or as "aiding the enemy." Is dissent treasonous? Or democratic?
This tension, this argument, has occurred in virtually every war our country has participated in.
Our governmental system of checks and balances is supposed to provide the bridle to unchecked power. That is why the president is commander in chief, but the congress is supposed to vote to declare war. The founders didn’t want to put too much power in one place.
The founders of the United States were very concerned about the gradual erosion of liberty due to overzealous political leaders.
The Unitarian John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail in July 1775: “A constitution of government, once changed from freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
That makes me shudder. I think I kind of take freedom and liberty for granted. You and I– we expect freedom. We expect due process. We expect to be treated fairly and humanely.
We can watch T.V. shows where the police have to follow certain rules and procedures. You have to be told you are being arrested. You have the right to an attorney. We take all of this stuff for granted.
Most of us haven't learned how societies or governments are born or die, and I think a lot of us assume that what we have now will continue, only with a hope that things will be better in the generations to come– better access to health care, a greener earth– that kind of thing.
We can like or dislike politicians and the people who run institutions, but we figure "they" are out there minding the store, so we don't have to.
After all, we live in a “free country,” right? We forget how strange and new this idea was when the founders of the United States were getting together on this.
The founders thought democracy was difficult to sustain– and very fragile. Over and over again they say governments yield to temptation and then to tyranny.
They feared tyranny or despotism– leaders making decisions on their own without the advice and consent of those whose interests they were supposed to represent.
They set up our system of 3 branches of government and checks and balances as a way of keeping any one branch from getting too powerful. The founders had seen tyranny & risked their lives for a free society.
They escaped tyranny in Europe. They knew how the British government felt about people who talked about democracy. The British called it sedition or rebellion. Or treason.
Americans were people who had left other countries where they had been put in prison or even tortured because of attending certain churches or giving prayers in a particular way. Any of the founders would likely have been hanged if the war had been lost.
“The founders set out to prove that ordinary people could be entrusted with governing themselves in a state where no one could arbitrarily arrest them, lock them up, or torture them.” 27.
They were concerned with Americans tyrannizing other Americans. The Bill of Rights, in particular, was set up to ward off the tendency to oppress others.
The idea that everyone had a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as written in the Declaration of Independence was radical at the time.
Our country was founded on these radical principles. And these are the principles that are at risk, just as they have been in the past.
We may forget or not know that both Hitler and Mussolini came to power– legally. Then they used the political system to transfer power to themselves.
Both men were supported by their own version of a think tank of scholars and public relations men who “made the case to the people that democratic processes weakened the nation in a time of crisis.”
Recently, a variety of commentators, pointing to a slew of events, have said they fear our democracy may be sliding into fascism. Naomi Wolf, in her book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, notes 10 steps from democracy to fascism.
She says all dictators:
1. invoke an external and internal threat;
2. develop a paramilitary force;
3. create a secret prison system;
4. do surveillance on ordinary citizens;
5. arbitrarily detain and release people;
6. harass citizen’s groups;
7. target notable individuals for dissenting;
8. intimidate the press;
9. Recast dissent as ‘treason’ and criticism as ‘espionage;’ and
10. eventually subvert the rule of law. 29.
So, let’s see, #1, the threat. We have al-Qaida and possible spies in the U.S. We have the Patriot Act. We have our global war on terror with wars going on in two countries.
Number 2. We have a paramilitary force. We have hired mercenaries in Iraq fighting along with U.S. soldiers– that’s Blackwater USA. The cost for each Blackwater guard in Iraq is $445,000 per year. That’s a lot more than a U.S. soldier gets.
Number 3, a secret prison system. Yes, we have that. We have a CIA prison system, we have Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Four. Yes, there is electronic surveillance on U.S. citizens by the U.S. military, over emails, phone records, financial transactions, done without warrants.
Five. Arbitrary detention and release. That happens all the time– even in airports. People can get on a no fly list, or a strip search list.
Six. Harass citizens groups. Peace groups get infiltrated by government agents. The ACLU has a report about this every year.
It’s not hard to find examples of the others. Not only in the current administration, but in previous episodes of U.S. history. The issue is not one of liberal or conservative presidents but of the use and abuse of power.
Our current president says we are committed to a global war on terror, a war with no endpoint in sight. The cost of these wars will be passed on to our children like a bad check.
We have the orange, yellow, red alerts. They don’t give us any real information but they can cause us to worry.
There hasn’t been any significant terrorist acts in America since 9/11, but the government keeps up the fear factor. Why?
Why all this continued fuss? Americans don’t like giving up freedom, liberty or privacy. But if we fear for our lives and loved ones, we’re probably a lot more willing to give these things up. People fear violence and chaos over just about everything else.
Italy and Germany were in chaos before Mussolini and Hitler came to power. A lot of people welcomed those men because they thought order could be restored quickly.
But our society is not in chaos. The stock market is at historic highs, unemployment is relatively tame. There are no riots in our city streets. People have all the televisions, cell phones, and cheesecake they can handle.
But when we are repeatedly told there is a crisis that cannot be managed by traditional means, that we are being victimized by terrorists; and that the military knows best– then we may hand over what the founders of this country risked their lives, their fortunes, the reputations to give to us.
A year ago, September 2006, "Congress passed the Military Commissions Act." The MCA
“gives the president– any president– the authority to establish a separate justice system for trying alien unlawful enemy combatants.”
It defines 'torture' quite broadly and ignores most of the basic protections afforded defendants in our regular legal system.
People accused by the president or his designee of being an enemy combatant don't get the basic protections of the Geneva Conventions. The military can use "coerced" interrogation. They can use techniques most other countries would consider torture, even though the U.S. signed the Geneva Conventions.
Plus, people can't challenge the legitimacy of the arrest, the detainment, or the treatment, even if it is considered torture. Naomi Wolf writes:
“The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an enemy combatant.
They claim the authority to give anyone in the executive branch the power to knock on your door, seize you on the street, or grab you as you are changing planes; blindfold you and put earphones on you; take you to a cell in a navy prison; keep you in complete isolation for months or even years; delay your trial again and again; and make it hard for you to communicate with your lawyer.
The president claims the authority to direct agents to threaten you in interrogations and allow into your trial things you confessed to while you were being mistreated. The president claims the authority to do any of those things to any American citizen now on his say-so alone.
The president asserts that he can do this to you even if you have never committed a crime of any kind: 'enemy combatant' is a status offense. Meaning that if the president says you are one, then you are.” 16.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas has said:
“As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air– however slight– lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
I think many of us would agree that in a severe crisis, the president should be allowed to declare a state of emergency. The danger is that without proper checks and balances, a president will be
“tempted to enforce his or her will through edict rather than submitting to the arduous process of negotiation and compromise.” 149.
It won’t really matter what political party the president belongs to. It’s not about which political party is in place, it’s about power.
In World War I, people were put in jail for writing letters to the editor criticizing the war.
What should we do now? Pay attention. See what the left and the right are saying. Talk things over with people you trust. Participate in the democratic process.
Support candidates and causes you believe in. Get involved.