Never Say Never

In an excerpt from his new book, Salon columnist Joe Conason explains why, for the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon, Americans have reason to doubt the future of their democracy. In It could happen here, Conason warns:

For the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon more than three decades ago, Americans have had reason to doubt the future of democracy and the rule of law in our own country. Today we live in a state of tension between the enjoyment of traditional freedoms, including the protections afforded to speech and person by the Bill of Rights, and the disturbing realization that those freedoms have been undermined and may be abrogated at any moment.

Such foreboding, which would have been dismissed as paranoia not so long ago, has been intensified by the unfolding crisis of political legitimacy in the capital. George W. Bush has repeatedly asserted and exercised authority that he does not possess under the Constitution he swore to uphold. He has announced that he intends to continue exercising power according to his claim of a mandate that erases the separation and balancing of power among the branches of government, frees him from any real obligation to obey laws passed by Congress, and permits him to ignore any provisions of the Bill of Rights that may prove inconvenient.

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As the midterm election showed, more and more Americans realize that something has gone far wrong at the highest levels of government and politics -- that Washington's one-party regime had created a daily spectacle of stunning incompetence and dishonesty. Pollsters have found large majorities of voters worrying that the country is on the wrong track. At this writing, two of every three voters give that answer, and they are not just anxious but furious. Almost half are willing to endorse the censure of the president.

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Bolstered by political impunity, especially in a time of war, perhaps any group of politicians would be tempted to abuse power. But this party and these politicians, unchecked by normal democratic constraints, proved to be particularly dangerous. The name for what is wrong with them -- the threat embedded within the Bush administration, the Republican congressional leadership, and the current leaders of the Republican Party -- is authoritarianism.

The most obvious symptoms can be observed in the regime's style, which features an almost casual contempt for democratic and lawful norms; an expanding appetite for executive control at the expense of constitutional balances; a reckless impulse to corrupt national institutions with partisan ideology; and an ugly tendency to smear dissent as disloyalty. The most troubling effects are matters of substance, including the suspension of traditional legal rights for certain citizens; the imposition of secrecy and the inhibition of the free flow of information; the extension of domestic spying without legal sanction or warrant; the promotion of torture and other barbaric practices, in defiance of American and international law; and the collusion of government and party with corporate interests and religious fundamentalists.

What worries many Americans even more is that the authoritarians can excuse their excesses as the necessary response to an enemy that every American knows to be real. For the past five years, the Republican leadership has argued that the attacks of September 11, 2001 -- and the continuing threat from jihadist groups such as al Qaeda -- demand permanent changes in American government, society, and foreign policy. Are those changes essential to preserve our survival -- or merely useful for unscrupulous politicians who still hope to achieve permanent domination by their own narrowly ideological party? Not only liberals and leftists, but centrists, libertarians, and conservatives, of every party and no party, have come to distrust the answers given by those in power.

The whole excerpt is well worth a read. I think I may have to add Conason's book to my reading list. I have expressed similar sentiments (although not in such eloquent terms), and I know that some of my friends and colleagues think I am being histrionic and am exaggerating the level of concern that we are truly in danger of losing our democratic way of life.

However, after college I became "obsessed" with the Third Reich in Germany and read (and still have) a number of books on Hitler and the rise of the Nazi Party. I just could not understand how the Holocaust could have happened. Not in the Holocaust denial sense, but rather -- how could the German people (as well as the rest of the world) stand by and allow a group of fanatics to take over and annihilate millions of people because of a difference in faith? After immersing myself in that shameful period in history, I realized how just how easily it happened.

I certainly don't want to raise the specter of Nazism (which is not what I believe is happening here), but I do believe that there is an aura that existed then is present today. Fear mongering, inciting racial and ethnic hatred and exaggerated patriotism are all indicia of the type of environment that is ripe for an erosion of our rights and freedoms.

After the fall of Hitler, the motto was "Never again." I think the motto today should be "Never say never."

Tags: Bush, Civil Liberties, Law, Politics