What it used to mean to be an American and TV "debates"

        When I grew up, to be an American meant having been raised to believe in certain values above all else, among these the right to certain unalienable freedoms; the freedom of thought, of religion, the right to speak out and oppose the government politically, and to stand against those who sought to remove these and other human rights from others, such as the right to a fair trail or defend and protect those whose countries were at risk from being attacked by larger more powerful countries and have these rights taken from them. What we have begun teaching our children what it means to be an American, and this is scary because they are beginning to be given a different picture by all that we are doing now opposed to all of these values no matter the rhetoric, some reality seeps through, it means to be able to turn a deaf ear, a blind eye, and a cold heart to those whom we take such freedoms away from because we say they do not deserve them, or that our security means they cannot have them now.
        Even worse, that we not only can deprive others of these rights, but destroy the infrastructure of entire countries, robbing them of electricity and clean drinking water, threating to do the same to our allies if they waver in support of us, and be "liberating" them at the same time for which they ought to be not only grateful to us, but indebted to us for, while we profit from both the destruction of their countries as well as the rebuilding contracts, often both ends profiting the very same companies. What I don't see as damning is that some people say torture and holding people indefinitely without charges and pre-emptive wars are a "good" thing, but instead that the debate has been so perverted by the on-screen weakness of those supposedly arguing against such things while actually acknowledging their so called "merits" makes us ALL look like moral despots. That torture does not work they say, that the occupation of Iraq was botched, never that such things are simply wrong and poison us and our culture and weaken the argument not only for our superior standing in the world, unprecedented, but strengthen the arguments many-fold among our enemies that we ought not to exist or that we are a drag or weight upon a world reaching after the same values we used to hold but now have seeming turned our backs on out of fear and cowardice.
        Maybe the media is to blame, showing people making arguments opposing such things but doing such a poor job at it you can't help but wince and pity anyone after that for trying to articulate such views when those shown on TV to have such views, (real moral views, not the kill the unrighteous views of televangelists), to be known to be making a weak argument in others minds before you even open your mouth simply because of how such views have been framed for them in others minds by the TV. That is the real weapon being used to stifle and retard political debate in the country, pre-emptive argument preparation in how people are made to think about what fools dissenters are by how they are shown on TV, as ineffectual and weak blowhards because those are the only kind of dissenters shown on TV.
        For one brief shining moment Gore (1/16/2006) grew enough balls to say the USA is moving toward dictatorship and complete abdication of rule of law, a lawless state run by criminals, something every former President should have said by now, even the present occupants elected father.
        There have been occasional streaks of courage in some Congressmen and Senators, most notably Senators Leahy and Finegold, but as with the Military Commissions Act, the Democrats have forfeited not their, but all American's right to oppose the President. It is sad day when the most outspoken and best critics of Bush the Junior Decider are all Conservative Republicans (it seems to them he is giving Conservatism a bad name, to the rest of us he is just giving Humanity a bad name), all ironically or not having shared the same Nixon Administration with the current upsurpers (Cheney, Rumsfeld) of legitimate Constitutional rule, the bravery to speak the truth nods going to John Dean, Pat Buchanan (that was hard to say), and Paul Craig Roberts. When all or most elected representatives need Nixon staffers to remind them that, "oh, we are supposed to have a Congress which keeps the President from acting like a psychotic dictator" (trying to make a larger segment of the world hate us so we can kill them all and pretty much be open about it) instead of encouraging him while he does so out of cowardice or because they have the same stock options, take money from the same "contributors", or are blackmailed by the same secret wiretapping program (everyone except Foley has something left to hide now).
        Nothing short of a full fledged Constitutional Convention could even begin to clean up this corrupt mess purposely designed to be uncleanable and to stain America with the blood of unnecessary mountains of civilian deaths by wars of choice and opportunism, whether economic to reward their campaign contributors (and there has been scores of that going around) or geopolitical opportunism at the cost of real security at home. "If we don't fight them there, we will have to fight them over here." Right, and if we were not so unwilling to consider blowing countries to hell before they did anything to anyone might be a bad thing to do, there probably would be far fewer of them wanting to come over here to kill us. The more people you kill the more enemies you create. Unlike the American people, our current leaders understand that math perfectly, and are perfectly profitably persistently pleased by it.