I think, logically, we're down to only a few options:

1. "he's lying": His stated opinions/positions don't reflect his beliefs at all.

2. "he's powerless": despite being President, he has no practical control over what is pursued, so his speeches and signing statements are essentially a plea for people and historians to not blame him for that which he cannot control.

3. "he's corrupt": Power has corrupted his ideals, and he truly believes he can fairly wield dangerous powers such as the drone kill list and suspension of citizenship/rights, despite their risks, and that having these tools available to him today is more necessary/important than denying them for fear of future abuse.

And none of those possibilities are particularly encouraging.

This is one of the huge ironies about contemporary conservatives. They practically worship the founding fathers like gods, but they would have hated many of them if they met them today, as many were godless radical liberals.

The most extreme example of this for me was when D'Souza and other republicans accused Barack Obama of being anti-colonialist [1], specifically in the context of British occupation, and they meant that in a bad way(!) Surely if nothing else, our country was founded on the principle of opposition to British colonialism.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10...

There is no irony in disagreeing with someone you never viewed as infallible.

And then, when something like this comes up, that actually does threaten our rights, crickets? Not only crickets but cooperation from the least cooperative congress possibly in history? What the fuck, guys?

Liberals don't trust police/military, and are ok with the welfare state. They're generally pretty consistent on this, Obama's signed off on this program, but it's been opposed by many more liberals than conservatives.

Conservatives are the opposite, as evidenced by the reaction to this. When you combine their rhetoric about "Obama's Tyranny" when it comes to marginal tax rates or healthcare reform with their complete silence about things that are actually threatening, it's pathetic.

You're even doing it yourself. 'Bloating the spectrum of government power' is obfuscatory BS. Social workers and teachers don't carry guns or listen to phone calls, yet you're trying to conflate them with the security state.

Liberal Democrats are hypocrites because they spent eight years bashing George W. Bush for his expanding surveillance state--and Obama specifically spoke out against it during his candidacy--yet many of those same liberal Democrats spend their time in Washington defending the current administration's policies. They hated Bush's wars and detainment policies yet say nothing about Obama's continuation of them, the drone strikes, and the general warmongering. This administration has been one long series of broken promises and defensive Democrats. Watching Nancy Pelosi attempt to differentiate between Obama's security state and Bush's security state was mind-boggling.

If you're going to respond that liberals are opposed to all this and don't consider Obama a true liberal because of it, conservatives did the same regarding George W. Bush when his poll numbers went down too. Every time there's a problem, the person in office suddenly doesn't represent you anymore, and you distance yourselves.

Bloating the spectrum of government power refers to desensitization to the growing power the government has to collect information on citizens for its own purposes, from the healthcare database to monitoring phone calls.

I can tell which "side" you're on just from the seething way you talk about the other team. If you took a step back and looked objectively, you'd see that you both come off the same way to independents and have the same transgressions and hypocrisies.

More like 4.5 than 6, but also for an 8 year period starting about 8 years before that, too.

The term 'rights' is also a vague one, and can be split fairly easily into those which should be considered universal and those which only apply locally -- for example, I have the right to walk across the road even where there's no designated crossing point, while in the US that would be jaywalking. That's not a universal right and certainly not a constitutionally protected one, but it's a right that's been removed from US citizens (and for good reason too, in some places). On the other hand, I would say that the right to life should be universal. The US is still largely happy with the death penalty and (per an earlier story on HN) the US Government seems to think that extra-judicial killings are fine too. They are apparently lawful under the constitution, and also threaten American citizen's rights.

First line of the article: "The Obama administration has won the latest battle in their fight to indefinitely detain US citizens and foreigners suspected of being affiliated with terrorists under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld

Your link: "...enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens, but ruled that detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the rights of due process,"

We've got 2 issues there, 'enemy combatants' requires a bit more proof than 'suspected of terrorism', although things can be fudged like in the Bradley Manning case. Then we have the whole due process.

The 5th amendment: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The parts about the armed forces apply to military justice for troops, when wartime discipline is invoked. It's not saying that "when you're at war it all goes out the window for ordinary citizens".

Indefinitely detaining someone based on suspicion, without a requirement of due process or a way to appeal, is quite clearly unconstitutional although I hold little hope for the current Supreme Court to overturn it.

Your right to free speech as an American citizen is only a right so far as the US government continues to respect that right. The Executive branch could come out tomorrow and start detaining anyone they cared to while stating that any criticism of the US Government is now a detainable offense, and it would be legal if the Judicial branch waved it's hands and said "We'll allow it."

Our rights may be "god given", but god cannot protect us from the tyranny of men.

History is pretty clear that what's legal is not always what's right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

http://atheism.wikia.com/wiki/Thomas_Paine

The whole distinction between one element of a set and a whole set seems to be incomprehensible to modern liberals. E.g. the recent example of shooting an attacking black thug had been made an example of racism. Because, obviously, somebody who shoots a black person to protect his life is principally against the entire black race.

Because obviously, one person with a certain ideological bent speaks for every person with that same ideology.

By the way, you should have spoken up if you knew unequivocally that the black thug was the attacker, especially when there was absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever, besides the testimony of accused. You could have really helped your guy's case.

PS. As for your suggestion for me to speak up - luckily prosecution brought a witness who testified that TM had been attacking GZ, so no need for me to do the same.

This square peg of a criminal case was jammed into the round hole of a political issue when Obama made his statement about if Trayvon was his son. Since there are millions of people in this country whose stances on various issues consist singularly of the opposing view of whatever Obama's view on the issue is, George Zimmerman became a conservative hero.

So to paint overreaction and the abandonment of logic and reason as a tenet of liberalism is downright ludicrous.

As for motivation, since 9/11 the course has been set to gradually implement a robust domestic counter-insurgence apparatus. So either the state anticipates otherwise unmanageable instability in the face of climate change, de-inustrialization, etc. or undemocratic changes are planned that could invite domestic insurrection.

The US is reportedly making plans for war with China (http://yalejournal.org/2013/06/12/who-authorized-preparation...), so that could be an effort requiring unprecedented austerity/authoritarianism.

Let's prevent freedom of thought, and lead the public to believe that while we actually feel threatened by the idea of communal sharing and the concept of Marxism, which we feel is harmful to the kickbacks that we receive from corporations to do what we want, Communism is actually just another word for an oppressive regime, and not a political concept derived by a highly intelligent German philosopher that has enormous benefits worldwide.

So, here's the plan: we invade 'Nam. If they're the first communist regime that actually works, the public will know we've been lying to them.

Shit, that didn't work. Okay, so there's this pretty harmless socialist dude running for office in Chile, let's call him a communist and make an example out of him. All right, let's get OUR candidate out, and-- HOLY SHIT, HE'S WON! We have succeeded. Even though Pinochet is an oppressive dictator and a mockery of democracy, let's keep him there anyway, because HE'S NOT COMMUNIST! Thank the lord. Thank, the, lord. Because he isn't communist, the public will never know that Chile is now oppressed!

So, reestablishing my point once again -- this has been going on long before 9/11, it's just that 9/11 has supercharged the process by giving the U.S. government a boost in doing so. There's a difference, though -- now we actually KNOW that the U.S. government is corrupt. It's no longer "you're with us or with the communists" or "you're with us or with the terrorists." What matters is how hard we push these people. The only way to do that is to educate. Mainstream media is a waste of time, and while Al Jazeera tends to be far more accurate and unbiased in its reporting, I don't know how well Americans will take to watching an Arabic-sponsored channel.

More high-profile names like Soledad O'Brien, and it should be enough.

Just before Caesar came along and get into a fight with the Senate. Congress' approval ratings are so low it really wouldn't take much for a powerful populist movement to challenge the constitutional makeup.

...Although a part of me fantasizes about the freedom which existed in Dark Ages....

You might want to check folks approval ratings of their own congressperson. The overall rating is horrid, but the "mine" is generally quite good.

The eastern half thrived, and even reconquered Rome and Spain, under Justinian. This was a continuation of the exact same government, no fall from power, just a loss of some territory. They lost Rome back fairly quickly and were controlling various parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa on and off until they entered terminal decline after 12-1300 or so, and Constantinople finally fell to the Turks, with the last Emperor dying in the battle in 1452.

But they had a much harder time dealing with the huge influx of displaced Germanic tribes due to the (Mongols iirc?). The western half of the empire started down the road to things like castles and other behavior like large estates that directly fed into the middle ages. Diocletian and his division of things into dioceses also helped, but I think once they started down the path of dual Augustus/Caesar rule it was bound to fail due to the inevitable clashes of personality.

That said its a great story. A good overview of things is in the "History of Rome" podcast. http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

Its long, but not as bad as The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. That book, the horrors.

However, what you refer to as unwanted side-effects, are the entire point. Those side-effects, aren't side-effects, they're the goal. Obama is aggressively pursuing these powers, just as Bush did before him. It's not ignorance at work, or misplaced faith in the system; everybody at the top of the food chain understands exactly what this means.

You want to know what he's thinking? He's thinking the same thing every despot in history has thought. If this were 20 or 30 years into the future, with the way things are going, Obama would be a truly frightening monster. The next three or four presidents that come after Obama, are the ones to be afraid of; they'll start off right out of the gate with the kind of power the founding fathers would have understood to be the domain of kings and tyrants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNS4t5UCBfI. That's what.

I'm repeatedly amused at how the first words of that sentence seem to be ignored by everybody who goes on to demonize Obama. (I made them bold for emphasis.) You almost never hear criticism or blame of Congress over this.

But to your point, congress certainly warrants equal rebuke.