If we care about freedom and our heritage, I think we need to seriously try to understand what creates the motivation[s] for those who would destroy them. I’m not writing about some outside enemy here, I am writing about power brokers within our own society. PW above uses the phrase, “Have you no sense of decency?” Folks, that idea of decency is a big clue.

For some time, I have wondered if we may be dealing with sociopathic [no inner values, i.e., amoral] criminals in high places in this administration, particularyly Dick Cheney whom I have long considered to be one of the most dangerous persons in America [google to find his voting record back when he was in the US House of Representatives].

A sociopath will appear normal because he/she is smart and adept at saying the right things, but that inner sense of morality, totally missing from the personality, is replaced by inner schemings that focus on what I call ‘the secondaries’. The simplest example of going for ’secondaries’ is the starving child who fills his belly with dirt to try to handle that awful continuous empty feeling. A sociopath has a different kind of emptiness, and substitutes pleasures like power over others, enjoying the distress of others, power for power’s sake, or filling up the psyche with consumption of expensive things. There is no consideration of decency except in pretending to have values that others have [which the sociopath learns to manipulate, just as the Bushies manipulate the religious right].

My post could go on about how sociopathic trends develop in a society and economy that rewards cunning manipulation over honorable moral behavior…….but I’ll leave all that for now.

Just try to imagine yourself watching the suffering of another and having no anguish inside. For most people, that is near impossible to imagine. For those who are sociopathic, such suffering of another may even be weirdly stimulating and ‘filling’.

With the idea at hand of sociopathic amorality, now look at the trends of the Bush administration. Could the continuing Iraq turmoil be planned and fomented by the Bushies as an intentional strategy to give reason to stay there for years to bring about an end result of ‘divide and conquer’? While moral folks focus on the human suffering, all may be going according to plan for the power brokers who have no deep caring for others.

With the idea at hand of sociopathic amorality, look at the the Bushies domestic agenda, which continually erodes our freedoms, and our opportunities and our happiness and even truth itself. Buying journalists and news stories, destroying a clean environment and public lands, tax breaks for friends and donors and no-bid contracts for crony corporations, while ignoring or taking more from the poor and neediest. I cannot think of one piece of legislation passed by this Republican majority in collusion with the Bushies that is designed to protect ‘the common good’ , let alone help the neediest in our country.

Now we have learned about an illegal domestic spying program uncovered by a whistleblower, a program instituted by executive order which bypassed the Constitution, the Congress and the Judiciary. Sounds like the Peeping Tom President’s sociopathic
advisors were trying to develop nefarious ultimate power over others. So to answer the question with which I started this post: Why was there no investigation more than a year ago when the whistleblower acted? For these sociopaths, the illegality and immorality of spying on Americans means nothing, and the leak itself wasn’t a problem, but to have their secret program exposed by the NYT gave back power of knowledge to the citizenry……..anthema to those who enjoy their ’secondaries’ in secret.

One heavy price we’ve paid for being a democracy spread over an immense acreage has been a tendency towards conformity and autocracy. The McCarthy era is a great example of what can happen and I think history will put the Bush era in the same category.

But it’s not as though Bush and McCarthy had some magical powers — they wouldn’t have gotten a grip on power, either of them, had we not allowed them to (and in some cases, positively enabled them). Now we’re in a position where some of us will have to speak out, do the right thing, hit the table and ask “Have you no sense of decency?” Or close the door to our office for the last time and meet with the reporter from the Times or Newsweek. Or call the lawyer at Justice and arrange to hand him the documents…

We know we’re doing the right thing when we’re dead scared and have left our egos — and our security — behind.

I think we can safely say that this train is getting pretty damned long. Mr. Jefferson told it true. As for the whistleblower breaking the law and getting into trouble, the act is that of a true decendant of the Founders:

And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.

Peace be.

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/12/leak_hypocrisy.html

It could have been one of a select few who knew about this program in the legislative branch.In which case, the fact that there are more reps aware of it, makes the odds in favor of it being a republican leak by shear numbers alone.Boy howdy wouldn’t that be a turd in the punch bowl for bush and the righties?Imagine if one of their own turned and leaked on them over this issue?

It could have been someone in the white house(gasp!). Now I know, you are saying no way, they don’t have a history of leaks,, but……..How would the righties ever weather that storm?

I guess my point to righties is at this point DON’T ASK QUESTIONS YOU DON’T ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWERS TO.It’s a dangerous game.Do they really WANT to know who the leaker is?

I think that Bush is using an act of outrage in the leak to support a claim of misunderstand in the interpetation of his presidential powers. He can only escape impeachment if he presents his spying as an honest and well intentioned mistake. He’ll only get his hand slapped by Congress for being the victim of poor counsel.