Suppose we elect a democrat in 2008. What happens to the freedoms that people say were taken away under the Bush administration via the patriot act etc? Restored, unchanged, further eroded?
This isn’t a question of what you’d like to happen ideally, but what you truly believe will happen. (though perhaps for some these are one and the same.) Are your expectations for what will happen under a democrat different than they would be under a republican?
Nothing will change. The new Administration will find that it likes the restrictions and will find any number of reasons to continue them “for the duration of the emergency.”
Meet the new boss - same as the old boss.
Since most of the wiretapping, etc., could have been easily achieved under the law, restoring the safeguards would not affect the war on terrorism. In addition, the Democrat would probably run on a platform of safeguarding our liberties and would reinstate the status quo pre-Bush on January 21, 2009.
It’s not going to be so much an issue of Democrats or Republicans as it will be one of Democrats vs Republicans. If the President (of either party) is a different affiliation from the majority of Congress (of either party), then Congress will suddenly get serious about limiting the power of the Presidency, including those powers granted by the Patriot Act.
It would depend on the platform of the candidate/winner.
Assuming that their platform was built up on “bringing us more liberties”, I don’t see why that new president wouldn’t get it done, especially if both houses are controlled by the Deomcrats as well.
Our current President has run on platforms promising to be a “uniter not a divider”, to have sound fiscal policies, to focus on domestic issues rather than foreign problems, to preserve American freedoms, and to make the world a safer place. So you have to take platform promises with a grain of salt.
Exactly.
Or maybe, like Bush, they’ll allow a single idiotic law to expire, then pass a host of new ones. But I’m fairly sure that we’ll not be any better off.
I think one change will be made which won’t require any help from a Pubbie Congress: the President will publicly disavow the use of torture by any US military forces, under any circumstances, with plenty of references to the “Republicans who made torturers of us all.”
This will resonate very well with a LOT of veterans, who have been seething over this whole torture thing. Most voters won’t care all that much, but barring some kind of bizarre success by the Pubbie spin machine, I can’t see some huge pro-torture groundswell in the US outside the psycho-redneck right. So it’s an all-win, no-lose stratagem for any Dem president. There’ll also be some kind of an attempt to sort out the real terrorists at Gitmo from the hapless victims of Afghani bounty hunters and score settlers, and to send them home or some place where they won’t get killed right away.
Well, I was also foolishly assuming that the candidate would actually work towards their platform promises.
You haven’t voted in many elections, have you kid?
I think a Democratic president would work within the laws and not engage in warrantless wiretapping and torture that the current regime enjoys so much. Surveillance that needs to be done will continue to be done, however it will be done legally.
I would not trust the Democrats, unto themselves, to undo damages to our individual rights and protections, but if there continues to be a clamoring for it, they will enact some amelioratives.
Most likely scenario: lots of status quo ante stuff is restored but with provisions embedded for suspending them under various “emergency” or “risk” circumstances, and/or circumscribing more tightly where they are applicable.
What will probably happen is the new president would pass some token law, and then call it all good. For example, President Hillary Clinton will push through a law making it illegal for agents of the United States to torture someone. (Never mind that this is already illegal, and that the actual torture is usually done by some other country, with the US pleading ignorance.) This will be hailed as a major victory for human rights, when in fact it is pretty much meaningless grandstanding.
A politician is only looking at the next election. He or she will stick by the platform only to the extent that they think it will affect how people will vote for them the next time they run.
Bush & Co. get to keep them as consolation prizes to be given out as door prizes at the 2012 RNC.
“Congratulations, you’re the 10, 000th pubbie this week. You win a free year of privacy!”
Freedom, once surrendered is not regained short of revolution.
We still have the chance to conduct this revolution at the ballot box, but it will take a lot more than just throwing out one half the scoundrels.
Anyone who currenly holds office has failed in their duty to the Constitution, and should be run out of town, with or without a rail. Every incumbant is in violation of their oath of office.
While we are at it, we might consider making it illegal to bribe members of congress.
Tris
The damage that Bush has done to this country is well reflected in this sentiment. Perhaps you forget that we went through 45 years of a real threat without torturing anyone or illegally wiretapping. This country was in a lot more danger from Russia than it is from the terrorists.
What I hope will happen is that new laws will come along with investigations of what they were doing, and will pass about the time the current assholes get tossed into jail.
If I may be so bold to ask: what freedoms have we lost? I have a vague sense that our freedoms have been abridged, and over time I have been uneasy about what the current administration has been doing, but if we’re going to talk of lost freedoms it would probably be a good idea to establish what those are.
We have lost any right not specifically named in the Bill of Rights. Some damn fool decided that since the word privacy is not in the Bill, it is not a right. Some damned fool decided that since an electron is not a paper, I have no right to be secure in my private affairs in modern media. The implicit assumption is that the Government gives us rights, rather than the other way around.
We have lost the right to a speedy and public trial. The government decides who has that right, and is not even responsible to say why, or who. Unlawful combatant is a nice catch phrase for unperson. A right that is not universally applied, is no right at all, but a privilege granted by the government.
We have lost the right to free speech. The government now provides zones for free speech, and does so without any due process. The first amendment applies only to those persons the government decides will have that privilege. You might feel that this is not important. You might not want free speech, in cases where you find it unimportant. I find it very important that someone who feels opposed to my every opinion and attitude is allowed to speak to that issue as he wishes.
We have lost the right of free choice in medicine. The decision of legality of medical choices is now an administrative action, without even the need for legislation. We are protected from our right to decide, because the government feels we are not making that decision as we should.
It is not a recent thing. It is a gradual thing, and it only moves in one direction.
Tris
Do you really think that in the whole of the Cold War, nobody was ever tortured and no illegal wiretaps were accomplished? I’m not saying they were or weren’t, just that I wouldn’t be surprised if either thing happened at least once during that entire time.