Do you want an imperial power whose leaders are free to perform any action they deem necessary to preserve the wealth, security, and freedom of action of the imperium, specifically the class of major corporation executives and board members, regardless of formal legal or ethical constraints? Or do you want a Republic that seeks good relations with other nations through trade and diplomacy, without interfering in their internal affairs, a Republic in which all enjoy equal opportunity and liability under a set of laws designed to promote liberty, peace, and prosperity?

The Revolution has always been about rejecting imperial power, coercion, and violence and opening up opportunities for peaceful personal and economic development. Until that Revolution is fully realized, we will all to some degree wear the shackles of tyranny, whether it be in higher taxes, less personal security, or having our privacy compromised on the grounds of "state security".

All of our recent and current political leaders are heavily committed to the preservation of America as an imperial power. Even the most democratic and eco-friendly president in my lifetime, Jimmy Carter, was the author of the odious "Carter Doctrine", giving notice that any nation that moves to restrict the flow of resources to America, even its own resources in its own self interest, is liable to come under military attack in consequence. America has thus become, for many people around the world, not an ideal to be emulated, but simply the biggest bully on the block, to which one must of necessity kow-tow, against which a smoldering resentment is directed.

On Thursday the nation and the world witnessed what can only be described as an appalling insult to the self-evident truths upon which our notions of society and government were founded. Standing in the National Archives before the original copies of the very documents that first proclaim the inherent nature of human rights, then enumerate several provisions, such as the writ of habeas corpus and the guarantee of a speedy trial decided by a jury of peers, that effect the protection of those rights, President Barak Obama endorsed a new program of "preventive detention". The President, who as a candidate drew substantial support from voters fed up with his predecessor's flagrant violations of Constitutional provisions and processes, has announced his support of a concept that is the antithesis of our heritage of civil liberty and human rights. President Obama outlined in brief a program of holding in indefinite detention those suspected by government agents to present a threat to human life and/or national security, absent the commission of any legal violation. If government is granted the power to lock people up and throw away the key simply on the suspicion that at some later time they may violate the law, we will have taken a gigantic step away from freedom and toward tyranny.

As previous generations have sacrificed much win from arbitrary and autocratic government the rights we have enjoyed, so we too must be willing to speak out and act in their defense, regardless of the direction from which they are attacked.

You are given some space on the cancellation page to comment on why you are canceling. I told the Obama people (if they read these things) that the President owed the nation an apology for pushing his "preventive detention" plan while standing in front of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both of which were written largely as legal instruments to check the unbridled abuse of executive power. That a guy who is supposed to be an expert in constitutional law can stand in front of the very documents that offer us protection against tyranny and, while holding the most powerful single office in the land, and without a bit of unease advocate that we adopt the instruments of tyranny shows that his thinking is badly deranged or he is in thrall to the not-so-shadow government of wealth and privilege.

I suggest we may get his attention if thousands of people cancel their names from his email address book.

Empires seek to maintain and extend their power and influence through secrecy, bribery, intimidation, torture, and aggression. Republics aspire to free access to information, fair dealing, respect for individual rights, and use of force exclusively defensive purposes. Empires empty their treasuries to benefit the powerful few at the expense of the many. Republics aspire to responsible financing of government and an equality of opportunity for advancement.

We started out over two hundred years ago with an incipient empire that the Founders tried to make into a republic. This effort was at least moderately successful until our ruling classes became accustomed to think that the United States must act as a world power continually to check Soviet ambitions of hegemony. With the collapse of our former rivals a couple of decades ago, we have still maintained at fantastic expense a military apparatus that is currently not appropriate to any conceivable threat. We have also continued the mind-set of Empire: total control, all the time. In the process we are witnessing the piecemeal disintegration of our republic. I hope that this can be recognized and checked soon, so we can go about our business once more efficiently and at peace with the world.