The Moderate Voice runs Guest Voice columns from time to time. This is another contribution from Nick Rivera and it’s cross-posted at his blog. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV.
American Freedom Agenda
by Nick Rivera
Listening to the Mainstream Media or Talk Radio, you’d never know that a number of prominent conservatives have been critical of President Bush’s domestic and foreign policy and are distancing themselves from today’s Republican Party.
On March 20th, an alliance of conservative met in Washington D.C. to announce the formation of the American Freedom Agenda–a coalition whose states goal is “to defend civil liberties and roll back excessive presidential power.” Among the speakers were such notable conservatives as Former Reagan Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein, conservative founder of the direct mail movement Richard Viguerie, American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene, and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr.
Four stalwart conservatives with rather controversial pasts, and yet I found myself in agreement with virtually everything that they said–support for civil liberties, checks and balances, and restraining the ever-powerful Executive Branch. Despite their conservative credentials, liberal Democrat Russ Feingold would have fit seamlessly in with these four.
Do the Left and the Right have more in common than we given them credit for?
Is a political realignment a growing possibility?
I’ve provided a partial transcript of the 42-minute press conference (televised by C-SPAN), which can viewed in its entirety here (Real Player needed):
Bruce Fein:
None of us here are anti-President Bush. I voted for President Bush twice. I served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But on matters of this importance, we’re all Americans. We’re all devoted to the Constitution above any partisan advantage.
Let me explain–the mission of the American Freedom Agenda is to roll back the accumulation of power in the presidency that has crippled checks and balances and invited injustices that we all ought to abhor as a civilized nation.
The most conservative principles of the Constitution have been repeatedly violated in the last several years. And they are a distrust in unchecked power–a distrust in the belief that human nature is benevolent. And building upon those conservative principles, the Founding Fathers engrafted a system of checks and review of one branch by another–a system of due process safeguards against injustice that is likely to occur because of prejudice and fear. And those checks and balances have eroded enormously over the last several years–particularly since 9/11. And let me enumerate for you the American Freedom Agenda elements that exemplify these erosions.
First we have military commissions. That is the equivalent of the Executive Branch playing judge, jury, and prosecutor using secret evidence or coerced testimony to convict individuals–a recipe for injustice.
We have habeas corpus suspended for detainees at Guantanamo Bay–habeas corpus tracing back to the Magna Carta–the fundamental freedom that enables any individual to challenge the legal or factual foundation for their detention before an impartial judge.
We have unlawful enemy combatants–those persons defined as providing any kind of material assistance to anyone affiliated to a terrorist or terrorist organization–being held indefinitely without any accusation of crime–being denied even the opportunity of to have an attorney to challenge the correctness of the designation before a combatant status review tribunal.
We have warrantless electric–electronic surveillance targeting American citizens on American soil by the National Security Agency in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as amended six times since 9/11 to accommodate the heightened danger and new communications technologies. Indeed, the theory that has been employed by the Executive Branch to justify that warrantless electronic surveillance would authorize the Executive Branch to open your mail, to break and enter into your homes, to search your computers without any warrants–on the President’s say-so alone…
Richard Viguerie:
I want to call to my fellow conservatives’ attention a Constitutional crisis that has developed to alarming proportions under President George W. Bush.
One of the most important principles of conservatism is that our Constitutional system of government is one of limited powers divided among three separate but co-equal branches. Just as a three-legged stool that has one leg longer than the other is unstable and could cause serious harm, our system of government will be unbalanced and potentially dangerous if all three branches of government are not co-equal.
The administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt saw unprecendented growth of the federal government. We were in a depression and then at war. So the other two branches of government caved in and allowed the Executive Branch to take more power than the Constitution authorized.
Since FDR, various presidents and their administrations have continued the expansion of excutive powers. However, President George W. Bush has massively expanded the power of the Executive Branch, partly in response to 9/11, and partly because of his philosophical belief in Big Government.
Congress has failed to do its job by acting as a check on the expansion of the Executive Branch. Conservatives must not fail to oppose the massive expansion of presidential powers out of fear they will be aid and comfort to the Left. Concern about one branch of government acquiring excessive power should not be the providence of liberals, moderates, or conservatives. It must be the concern of all Americans who value liberty…
David Keene:
In the days immediately following September 11, then Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld suggested in a public speech that if Americans change the way in which they live, the terrorists would have won. And the fact of the matter is that in this international crisis–as in international crises throughout our history–there’s been too great a willingness on the part of many to trade a little bit of freedom for what they see as a little more security.
It’s happened after war after war. Some of the legislation that we talked about here was passed as long ago as the Wilson administration, when Woodrow Wilson did throw newspaper editors in jail for disagreeing with him. In each of these instances, we ratchet down our freedoms, and at the end of the conflict, we don’t get them all back. And some of the restrictions continue.
I think that whether one agrees or disagrees with all of the items in this list–the very suggestion that we ought to recognize the importance as the engine of freedom of the system of checks and balances that the Founding Fathers incorporated into the Constitution is a value that should not be denigrated.
There’s a lot blame for what’s happened here. The administration–some on its own and some because all administrations seek to maximize their power–the congress because it let it happen–the courts in many cases went along with it. Go back to the McCain-Feingold Act, which is completely separate from this. The Congress congressional leadership told members of congress they could vote for it because it was unconstitutional–they’d never need to worry about it becoming law. The president of the United States said, “It’s unconstitutional, but I’m going to sign it anyway, and I’m going to send it to the Court and them do the job.” The Court said, “Don’t throw it to us. This is a political matter. You deal with it.” All three branches of the government failed in that instance.
Today, we have a controversy going on at the Department of Justice. Part of that controversy involves a provision USA PATRIOT Act that would allow the appointment of U.S. attorneys without confirmation. The Justice Department says, “Gee, we don’t know who wrote that. We don’t know who–it must have been a summer intern.” On the Hill, everybody says, “We didn’t even know it was in the act.”
The fact of the matter is that all of the branches of government have been complicit in seeking to achieve their own missions–partisan or otherwise–legitimate or illegitimate–at the expense of a system that, for two hundred years, has guaranteed the American people the freest society on the face of the earth. And all these branches–all of the actors–and this goes to the public as well–have to realize what it is–and what it is about our system that’s made America special, and fight for those things that continue to make it special.
Bob Barr:
As we speak, there are hearings being conducted on the Hill in the House Judiciary Committee inquiring into abuses of the USA PATRIOT Act and the extraordinary powers that it allowed the federal government to seize. And these hearings that relate specifically to abuses with regard to the so-called National Security Letter powers are as blatant an illustration of what happens when unbridled power without checks and balances and without accountability is afforded an administration–any administration.
Recently, a number of us here attended the Conservative Political Action Conference organized and chaired every year by Dave Keene. And many of the topics that relate to the American Freedom Agenda that Bruce has outlined was discussed by various speakers and participants at CPAC.
I had the opportunity just this past weekend to attend the national committee meeting for the Libertarian Party. These very issues were discussed at great length by adherents to and members of the Libertarian Party. Recently, the court here in the District of Columbia–the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rendered a decision that struck a small but important blow for freedom in upholding the primacy of the Second Amendment as opposed to oppressive anti-freedom legislation that had been standing for fully three decades here in the District of Columbia.
Each one of these illustrations–whether it is fighting through an organization of conservative activists such as CPAC–whether it is working through a political party which has liberty at its core–the Libertarian Party–whether it is supporting for and bringing cases to the courts to uphold the principles of the Bill of Rights–all of these things are important.
But we cannot sit by and wait thirty years for court decisions. We cannot wait until another four-year election cycle is concluded to have the Bill of Rights restored and defended. And we cannot even rely–as powerful as CPAC is–just on CPAC each year to bring attention to American conservative activists across the country to support the Bill of Rights. We have to do it every day in everything that we do. And the very best example of this is the initiative that is being launched here today under the leadership of Bruce Fein, to bring together Constitutional scholars–that is citizens who understand and care about and are willing to giv their time and resources to defend the Constitution–quite apart from any partisan or political activity…
Ron Paul (Guest Speaker):
Sometimes there’s careless thought about civil liberties, and all of the sudden, Republicans and conservatives don’t care, and that is in the realm of liberals. And I think this [American Freedom Agenda] is a testimony to the fact that there are a lot of conservatives that do care, and I think that’s very important.
You know, there’s a lot of talk when we get ready to appoint a Supreme Court justice or any justice about whether or not they’re strict Constitutionalists and that we’re always looking for them. But sometimes I think that debate is very careless because sometimes from the conservative viewpoint, strict Constitutionalists are concerned about Roe-vs-Wade and guns and maybe some economic issue. But when it comes to this [American Freedom Agenda], they don’t consider this to be a strict Constitutionalist.
These gentlemen here–leaders in the conservative movement–know the difference. And being a strict Constitutionalist doesn’t mean just when you’re pleased to do it. And that’s why I think this is so important what you’re doing because this makes a very powerful point.
I think if you’re a strict Constitutionalist, we should follow Article I Section VIII and deal with war under those conditions. You know, think about how many problems we might be able to avoid if we don’t go to war without a declaration of war. Look at the mess that we have now. And it’s under the conditions of war–and it was mentioned, I think, by Richard–that under these conditions, this is where our liberties are challenged. So it is trying to avoid these conditions when the American people become frightened.
So there is a saying that goes that, “Sometimes we ought to be more worried about what’s happening here than what’s happening overseas. And since, I think, our foreign policy has an effect on the threat of terrorism. And then you add onto it the threat from our own government.
And I don’t–as bad as this is–I don’t put all the blame on the president because I think the congress has tremendous responsibility–even on the war issue. We just renig on our responsibility and turn it over to the Executive Branch, and we do not protect the perogatives of the congress. And that is my message constantly. Besides, I’ve been a member of the congress, and I think I can–better be critical of the congress–that they give up too easily. And the temptation of the Executive Branch over the many many years of probably throughout all of history–they say that the Executive Branch is always hungry. That’s why it’s up to the people–up to the congress to reign in the power of the Executive Branch…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.