Above the law? by Carol Wolman

 ABOVE THE LAW?    BY CAROL WOLMAN

The Bush administration acts as if it can ignore international law.  The US can flout the Geneva conventions, invade another country under false pretenses, refuse to submit to the International Criminal Court, and generally conduct itself as an outlaw nation.

Domestically, things are not much better.  Although Bush makes an effort to pass legislation that will justify his actions, much of the legislation, such as the Patriot Act and Homeland Security act, violates the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that Bush swore to uphold.  Many election laws were violated by his campaign in the 2004 "election".  He seeks to circumvent due process and has arrogated to himself the power to declare any American citizen a "terrorist" and arrest him/her with no warrant and no notification to family or friends,  no access to legal assistance, no trial, no sentence, but indefinite secret detention.

The justifications for lawlessness by Bush supporters seem to be:

1) America is the only superpower and can create its own reality at will, with no reference to decency, morals or generally accepted standards of behavior.  In fact, as a "Christian" nation, it has an obligation to conquer and proselytize "lesser breeds without the law" (Kipling), especially Muslims.

2) We are in the end-times, and previous laws no longer hold.  According to many of the "rapture" cultists, the returning Jesus is vengeful and arbitrary, and kills "unbelievers" without mercy.

3) Bush is a representative of the Almighty and can do no wrong.

Is this the teaching of Jesus?

 Matthew 5:17-19 (King James Version)

¹⁷Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.  ¹⁸For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

The Christian followers of Bush are deceived.  They enjoy the fruits of Bush's lawlessness, in the form of relatively cheap gasoline for their SUV's, and they swell with patriotic pride over his foreign adventures.  They can drop all pretense at discernment, and enjoy "belonging" to the sadistic self-righteous rapture cult.

  2 Thessalonians 2 (King James Version) ¹¹And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:  ¹²That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

In the name of the Prince of Peace,  Carol Wolman