DON'T MOVE ON. START OVER.
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When a ruler seizes office by extralegal means he rules the same way. Because he does not derive his power from the people--indeed, his rule relies on their passivity--he is not beholden to them. Selling the public on his policies is hard enough for a legitimately elected ruler; an illegal one has to resort to bullying, presented as a stern, autocratic triumph of the will. He is forced to order his lawyers to find legal loopholes using the most tortured reasoning imaginable. In the end, when citizens turn against him, the tyrant shrugs his shoulders. "So?" This is what the vice president replied when a reporter asked about polls showing that Americans have turned against the Iraq War. Cheney's question was perfectly reasonable. Why should he care what we think? We didn't elect him. He doesn't owe us the slightest consideration.
When a ruler seizes office by extralegal means he rules the same way. Because he does not derive his power from the people--indeed, his rule relies on their passivity--he is not beholden to them. Selling the public on his policies is hard enough for a legitimately elected ruler; an illegal one has to resort to bullying, presented as a stern, autocratic triumph of the will. He is forced to order his lawyers to find legal loopholes using the most tortured reasoning imaginable. In the end, when citizens turn against him, the tyrant shrugs his shoulders. "So?" This is what the vice president replied when a reporter asked about polls showing that Americans have turned against the Iraq War. Cheney's question was perfectly reasonable. Why should he care what we think? We didn't elect him. He doesn't owe us the slightest consideration.
Electoral illegitimacy begets illegitimate rule: Secret detentions and torture redefined into meaninglessness. Secret prisons. Ending habeas corpus, the right to have one's case heard before a judge--a right English-speaking people had enjoyed for 800 years. Secret "signing statements" purporting to negate laws signed in public. Spying on Americans, lying about it to Congress, and then, after getting caught, trying to legalize it retroactively. Destroying evidence. An executive order granting the president the power to declare anyone--without evidence--an "enemy combatant," then order that person imprisoned for life, or even assassinated.
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