They Made Us a Nation of Bedwetters

[gratuitous]

2. We clearly don't trust our own laws anymore

And it's oh-so-fashionable now to just shit-can the Constitution based on some newly-minted principle of necessity. I didn't much care for it when the hideously-misnamed USA PATRIOT Act was passed in 2001 (curiously quickly after the September 11 attacks; almost as if this was legislation just waiting for the right moment to be enacted), and I really detest it nearly 11 years later.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The President swears an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. The reason for that is because without the Constitution, there is no United States of America with its justly-revered separation of powers and Bill of Rights. There would be no greater testimony to the world and to our own people than to follow the Constitution even in our darkest hour. But what we've demonstrated time and again in the last decade is that we will jettison our own laws in the name of efficiency, or because we're really scared, or (most likely) because it serves some other power's shadowy ends.

This trial will be a sham and a shame. And a lot of people who should know better will go along with it for no better reason than the party affiliation of the man currently occupying the Oval Office.