In memoriam: The United States of America

One day I awoke to find myself in a strange country. I had not emigrated. While I slept, my country disappeared. In its place was an altogether different nation. It shared the same flag and anthem of the country of my birth, but it lacked a soul and a moral compass.

I was born in the United States of America. As a child I was taught to love my country and to cherish all that made it great. Above all, I was taught to revere its Constitution, the document upon which our government was founded and which gave every citizen the power to influence destiny of their country.

In the United States of America, elected leaders held many different ideologies, but they all loved the Constitution. They argued over how to interpret it and even whether to change it, but they governed in accordance with our Constitution and its Amendments. Even when it hindered their plans, our leaders respected the Constitution as the final word on what laws they could create and enforce.

The Constitution of the strange country in which I now find myself is feeble and frequently disregarded. Leaders evoke the Constitution when it serves their agendas but dismiss it when it supports an opponent's argument. They enact laws without regard for its content. There is no longer any guiding principle for the creation of new laws except for their thirst for power.

In the United States of America, the most valuable right granted to its citizenry by its Constitution was the liberty to say or write anything. Citizens were free to criticize the government without fear of punishment. One could express any opinion, no matter how offensive or erroneous others may have found it, and expect nothing worse than criticism in return.

In this new, foreign nation, leaders condemn dissenters in limitless ways. One who criticizes the government is branded a traitor. At best, careers and lives are ruined. At worst, those who dare to oppose the government's policies are incarcerated and tortured.

In the United States of America, the Constitution guaranteed a suite of rights under the umbrella of due process. One's privacy could only be breached if a judge believed there was credible evidence of a crime. One had the right to legal representation and to refrain from self-incrimination. If accused of a crime, a citizen was arraigned and tried. The accused was convicted or acquitted by a jury based on the absence or presence of reasonable doubt. The defendant always had the right to ask a judge for release from incarceration of his or her due process had been abridged.

In the new country, due process is abridged on a whim. If a citizen is suspected of opposing the government, he or she is held without access to an attorney, without arraignment, without hope of ever seeing a judge. The government can hold the suspect forever. Those suspected of being the enemy are tortured and forced to incriminate themselves and others. The veracity of confessions obtained in this manner is irrelevant. One is guilty if the government says so. There is no other standard of justice.

In the United States of America, various mechanisms existed to balance power between branches of the government, between the states and the federal government, between political parties, between the government and its people. No one person or entity could become too powerful due to the circumscription of the Constitution. In this way, everyone had reason to defend the Constitution and hence their own small share of the power.

There is no balance in this terrible place. The judiciary has been castrated. Legislators line up to fawn over a despot who claims to be God's representative on Earth. The opposition party is unable to effectively oppose the dictator for fear of losing what little power they have left. When states pass laws that conflict with the dominant party's agenda, the tyrant commands his minions in the national legislative body to nullify it. The citizenry has no rights except to bow down.

The United States of America is but a memory now. I do not know what to call this abominable country, but I will never call it The United States of America.