Letters to the Editor
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Well. Harrumph.
First of all, I take the position that the Republic of Our Founders has already been overthrown. We now live under a pseudo-Constitutional Autocracy. Occasionally, but rarely, lip service is paid to that Constitution -- when it suits the interests of the Autocracy. But it is neither a binding nor and enforceable document on that Autocracy. As the Autocrat has been rumored to opine: "It's just a piece of paper."
It is my position that Congress (both Parties) has been complicit in this overthrow, just as the Supreme Court was the chief instigator of it. A majority of Congress -- though not necessarily a majority of both Parties -- has gone along with or has actively enabled the consolidation of this Autocracy, once they agreed to its imposition in the first place.
By all means, restore habeus corpus, but understand what it does and doesn't mean in the context of a Lawless Autocracy. The Autocrat will decide whether to allow habeus suits to proceed -- or not. In other words, after all the parades and the trumpets and bowing down before the Constitution (Now Restored, Huzzah!), the Autocrat is still the one who decides whether and to what extent such a right may be pursued, and further, the Autocrat decides who may or may not exercise that right.
In other words, though "restored" there is still no real right to habeus corpus unless and until the Autocrat so decress. You watch.
By now, we should have had plenty of experience with how this works. But Glenn, bless his heart, doesn't seem to accept my premise -- that is, that Our Self-Governing Constitutional Republic has already been overthrown and its remaining institutions are being incrementally subverted as we speak. Instead, he sees the Republic standing strong, going through some rough waters, perhaps, but with its Self-Correcting Institutions well on the way to restoration and healing, if we only keep working at it and give it enough time.
I think that's a very naive point of view.
No, something truly dreadful happened when the government was handed over to the current Regime and the Congress of the United States agreed to it.
We're six years into this Lawless Autocracy, and we should know quite well by now that the incremental changes have largely gone in one direction: the undermining and subversion of the institutions of government.
It's good that Some Dems are looking into and exposing some of the worst of the abuses of the Autocracy, but they are not even close to reversing (or even addressing) the fundamental subversion of the Constitution itself, and their own complicity in that subversion.
We've got a long way to go to get our country back. Or maybe it would be just as well to get comfortable with the New America and be grateful for anything we get.