{"id":167,"date":"2009-02-12T19:22:03","date_gmt":"2009-02-12T19:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html"},"modified":"2009-02-12T19:22:03","modified_gmt":"2009-02-12T19:22:03","slug":"a-low-blow-to-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html","title":{"rendered":"A Low Blow to the Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had not planned to do another blog till at Pantheacon, but upon reflection, I am making an exception.&nbsp; I was one of many who rejoiced when Barack Obama won the presidency, bringing I hoped an end to the lawlessness and Caesarism now endorsed by the Republican Party.&nbsp; I still rejoice, but not quite so enthusiastically.<\/p>\n<p>The Obama administration has acted to defend some of the worst excesses by the Bush administration regarding torture and executive overreach.&nbsp; Basically, he defends placing Presidents and their aides&nbsp; above the rule of law, enabling them to break the law and then prevent their victims<br \/>\n&#8212; or anyone else &#8212; from holding them accountable in court by invoking the magic words &#8220;state secrets.&#8221; That Obama is a more decent man than George Bush is irrelevant.&nbsp; We are talking about preserving our constitutional order, which should trump the desires of any person.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<br \/>Many of us voted and campaigned for Obama because of our disgust with the moral depravity that had come to characterize rule by thugs.&nbsp; A depravity that still dominates the Republican Party.&nbsp; Now on one very important point Obama is seeking to enshrine a principle of Caesarism as a principle of American government that is alien to te Bill of Rights and our Founding Fathers. For a good overview, see Glenn Greenwald&#8217;s excellent analysis <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/opinion\/greenwald\/2009\/02\/10\/obama\/index.html\">here<\/a>&nbsp; and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/opinion\/greenwald\/2009\/02\/12\/state_secrets\/index.html\">here<\/a>&nbsp;&nbsp; at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/opinion\/greenwald\/\">Salon<\/a>, and if you, like me, think of people of good will should take care of the world we live in, human and more-than-human alike, go to<a href=\"https:\/\/secure.aclu.org\/site\/SPageServer?pagename=state_secrets\"> this<\/a>&nbsp; ACLU site and register your opposition.<\/p>\n<p>Even a fundamentally decent man like Barrack Obama can be mesmerized by the allure of power.&nbsp; That is why we have a constitution.&nbsp; But we need to defend it against decent men as well as against the most venal.&nbsp; Decent men may be even more dangerous in this regard, for they create the precedents that bad men later use to do more harm than they otherwise would.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had not planned to do another blog till at Pantheacon, but upon reflection, I am making an exception.&nbsp; I was one of many who rejoiced when Barack Obama won the presidency, bringing I hoped an end to the lawlessness and Caesarism now endorsed by the Republican Party.&nbsp; I still rejoice, but not quite so&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Low Blow to the Constitution - A Pagan&#039;s Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Low Blow to the Constitution - A Pagan&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I had not planned to do another blog till at Pantheacon, but upon reflection, I am making an exception.&nbsp; I was one of many who rejoiced when Barack Obama won the presidency, bringing I hoped an end to the lawlessness and Caesarism now endorsed by the Republican Party.&nbsp; I still rejoice, but not quite so&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Pagan&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-12T19:22:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gus diZerega\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Low Blow to the Constitution - A Pagan&#039;s Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Low Blow to the Constitution - A Pagan&#039;s Blog","og_description":"I had not planned to do another blog till at Pantheacon, but upon reflection, I am making an exception.&nbsp; I was one of many who rejoiced when Barack Obama won the presidency, bringing I hoped an end to the lawlessness and Caesarism now endorsed by the Republican Party.&nbsp; I still rejoice, but not quite so&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html","og_site_name":"A Pagan&#039;s Blog","article_published_time":"2009-02-12T19:22:03+00:00","author":"Gus diZerega","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html","name":"A Low Blow to the Constitution - A Pagan&#039;s Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-12T19:22:03+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-12T19:22:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#\/schema\/person\/d94ab0155d2780a0526af373b5c543f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/02\/a-low-blow-to-the-constitution.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Low Blow to the Constitution"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/","name":"A Pagan&#039;s Blog","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Gus diZerega","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#\/schema\/person\/d94ab0155d2780a0526af373b5c543f2","name":"Gus diZerega","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/4f6\/4f6b5a87d91376eaf8d126df301ab8cdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/4f6\/4f6b5a87d91376eaf8d126df301ab8cdx96.jpg","caption":"Gus diZerega"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/author\/gdizerega"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}