Don't you think you're perhaps distorting the picture a wee bit?

What's Babylonian province got to do with anything? And what of the Kurds and swamp Arabs? They don't count?

Hey, I was a peacenik once, a very long time ago. And even now, I advocate world peace - by the means of universal republican democracy, with American hegemony as a means toward that. So does that make me a smelly sandal-wearing hippie? Would I like to buy the world a Coke? Take the treacle and the saccharine out of humanist idealism, add some common sense, and I'm what you get.

First, try beathing into a paper bag. And then go through your list of grievances against the current administration, one by one. Cross off every one where the evidence is... shall we say... open to interpretation. Then cross off every one where previous adminstrations of the other party have attempted the same, or worse. Let me know if there's anything left.

And then let me know if anyone ever got away with any items on your list. Only Lincoln and FDR even came close to turning our Constitution into meaningless pap. They both had emergencies to deal with. The emergencies ended, and the Constitution survived.

There is absolutely nothing novel about anything you're hyperventilating over. It happens all the time. Constantly. Always has, always will, under either party. And our democracy survives. The pendulum of power swings, but it never breaks loose from the fulcrum. The system works. It defends itself.

Get a grip, man. You're sounding like a PKD novel. Ferris Fremont is a Red! ([link|http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/dialogue/hayward.html|And he was, sort of. But in the end it didn't much matter.])