For some time now, I’ve been saying to friends that I think 2004 will be the last election. My assumption has been that Bush will win, based on what I see as a “so? it’s not our rights, but theirs” attitude and a downright baffling attitude among Americans towards the economy and deficit, both of which were under control until not long after Bush took office. (And even before the war he started which threatens to bankrupt us.)

I thought perhaps after that, when Bush is theoretically no longer legally capable of holding the Presidency, he would declare that elections could not be held because the crisis facing our country was too severe. I also though that perhaps this would be so far “out there” that people would begin to think I was nuts.

But I’m not the only one saying this now and not a few think it will be the 2004 election that is cancelled.

Think that could never happen here? Ever?

That’s what they said in Germany…

…in early 1933.

Am I a nut? If I am, so is the Deputy Chief of Mission for the State Department who recently sent her letter of resignation to Colin Powell…

…when she resigned from her position with the State Department after a career which included such accomplishments as opening the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2002.

Among other things, she said,

Further, I cannot support the Administration?s unnecessary curtailment of civil rights following September 11. The investigation of those suspected of ties with terrorist organizations is critical but the legal system of America for 200 years has been based on standards that provide protections for persons during the investigation period. Solitary confinement without access to legal counsel cuts the heart out of the legal foundation on which our country stands. Additionally, I believe the Administration?s secrecy in the judicial process has created an atmosphere of fear to speak out against the gutting of the protections on which America was built and the protections we encourage other countries to provide to their citizens.

Yes, for more than 200 years, the legal system has been based on the same set of protections, changing only within the last two years. To hear people talk these days, you’d think our republic is too fragile to have survived so long while still applying the Constitution not just to U.S. citizens, but to anyone on our soil.

Yes, that’s right. Even non-citizens had previously been deemed to have certain constitutionally-protected rights. Today, not even all citizens get those rights!

The fact of the matter is this: America has bought the lie that the best way to protect the Constitution is to destroy it.

If folks other than Cheney & Friends were actually getting something other than just good feelings out of it, I could understand. But what are we getting out of it other than spiraling debt—debt which, I might add, was shrinking under the last administration—and elections that cannot be settled anymore without resort to a courtroom with the final say going to the judicial elite? (I’m not just referring to the Bush-Gore thing, which without the intervention of the courts would still likely have ended up with Gore winning the popular vote, but Bush winning the electoral vote—which is the one that counts.)

What will it take to actually have people look at the situation today? Is our country economically better off than it was? Is our legal system better off than it was? Do we not have less rights than we did?

What exactly will wake up America? The terrorists could not in their wildest dreams have disrupted our system as much as Rumsfeld and Rove.