Both mainstream US political parties claim to truly represent, and aspire to the ideals of Liberalism, which underpins the philosophy of the founding fathers. President Obama has overseen the Democrats losing the entitlement to this claim, long lost by the Republicans.
“Government has no other end, but the preservation of property”.
These are the words of John Locke, the father of classical Liberalism, in his seminal work Two Treatises of Government. Locke was later the inspiration of the founding fathers, to the point of being almost directly ripped off by them. Both mainstream US political parties claim to truly represent, and aspire to the ideals of, the philosophy of the founding fathers.
In reality, Republicans lost the legitimacy of this claim long ago. However, the Democrats have been able to cling on to some of the Liberal principles upon which the United States was founded. Sadly, President Obama has overseen the Democrats losing the entitlement to this claim. Edward Snowden’s recent revelations highlight just how far the Democratic Party has fallen.
Related: Does the NSA tap that? What we still don’t know about the Agency’s internet surveillance
In the run up to the 2008 election, Obama promised to be a dedicated Liberal president. Obama seemed particularly devoted to civil liberties and reversing their demise under the Bush presidency. Obama claimed that civil rights are the “essence of who we are” and that he would make a concerted effort to defend civil liberties during his presidency. However, all but a few of Obama’s promises have been broken.
One of Obama’s early pre-election promises was to defend the rights of Afghan prisoners, which had been severely violated by the Bush presidency. However, shortly after assuming office, Obama challenged the ruling of a district court that allowed prisoners in Afghanistan to challenge the legality of their imprisonment, which he won.
Related: Drones: A Terror in the Sky
In May of 2009, Obama gave the executive branch the right to indefinitely hold prisoners it deemed dangerous, without charge, without a court hearing and even if they were known to be innocent.
In late 2011, Obama gave the government the power to arrest and indefinitely hold anyone from anywhere without trial on suspicion of terrorist activity.
In a 2007 interview with the Boston Globe, Obama argued that he rejected the notion that “the president may do whatever he deems necessary to protect national security”. However, assassinations were expanded to include American citizens and drone attacks have become far more widespread. Within a year, Obama doubled the number of drones and authorised the use of twice as many drone strikes as were issued by George W. Bush during his entire presidency. According to Pakistani quotes referenced in the New York Times, some estimates now suggest that 50 civilians are killed for every 1 terrorist in predator drone strikes.
A recent study by Stanford University and New York University argues that, although some terrorists have been killed in drone strikes, the campaign has galvanised anti-Western sentiment and created far more far more Islamic extremist terrorists than it has killed. However, according to The Washington Post, the CIA is seeking to expand its drone fleet.
US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning exposed via Wikileaks US drones targeting and killing Reuters journalists. Manning was arrested in 2010 and has been kept in extreme solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. Manning was forced to sleep naked without bed sheets or a pillow. Manning was denied access to physical exercise, television and newspapers.Manning faces life imprisonment if convicted. Experts have classified Manning’s treatment as “inhumane” and a clear violation of the Eighth Amendment’s right to be spared from cruel and unusual punishment.
Can President Obama truly be classified as a liberal? Image Credit: US Army
Despite his promises, Obama has failed to end extraordinary rendition. In the run up to the election Obama spoke of “ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law”.
However, rendition persists and torture continues to be employed, often, if not generally, on entirely innocent victims. On top of this, despite its clear violation of human rights, Obama has issued blanket immunity to all those involved in the practice of torture, as well as those who destroyed evidence of the practice.
Prior to his election, Obama was critical of Bush’s warrantless wiretapping campaign. In 2008, Obama pointed out how “Ever since 9/11, this Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand”. This somewhat echoed the views of the founding fathers. Benjamin Franklin argued “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”. However, on assuming office Obama moved to prohibit any lawsuit against the US Government concerning surveillance as this would “compromise national security”. This effectively prevents the American public from carrying out a constitutional right. Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing has revealed that the US government has been warrantlessly monitoring telephone and internet traffic. The NSA’s PRISM programme, exposed by Snowden, has been described as “an evident breach of international conventions on human rights” by numerous civil liberties groups.
Obama has vastly increased funding for the so-called “War on Drugs”. Rather than focusing on rehabilitation, this war imprisons non-violent offenders and disproportionately affects racial minorities. Forbes has described the War on Drugs as a “war on minorities and the poor” due to the specific targeting of these groups. According to Forbes “Black men are sent to state prisons on drug charges at 13 times the rate of white men” and “are sent to federal prison on drug charges at a rate 57 times greater than White men”.
Harsh mandatory sentences turn addicts into serious criminals. Many of those arrested for drugs offences find themselves unable to afford legal representation. Insufficient legal aid has led to many public defenders working hundreds of cases simultaneously. The average caseload for a Miami Dade County public defender is 225 misdemeanours and 500 felonies. This, coupled with mandatory sentencing, has led to between 90-95% of those charged of a crime in the US pleading guilty without facing trial. This would appear to be a clear breach of the 6th Amendment and has contributed to US having the planet’s highest incarceration rates, with, according to the New Yorker, more citizens under “correctional supervision” than there were in the Soviet Union at the height of the Gulag archipelago under Stalin.
But is this really Obama’s fault? Is he facing just too fierce an opposition to act in a way that is truly in accordance with his political ideals? Possibly. Republicans in Congress have fought Obama throughout his Presidency. In 2010, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell argued that preventing Obama’s re-election was the “single most important thing we want to achieve”. Republican Congressmen have intentionally shot down bills supported by Obama that would have benefitted millions of Americans.
Obama’s supporters have argued that it is this fiercely partisan opposition that has led to Obama adopting a more conservative attitude to civil liberties. Now this should certainly be taken into account. However, there is a big step between facing a strong opposition and adopting that opposition’s perspective. Obama enacted many of the more controversial policies mentioned in this article early on in his presidency when he had a significant congressional majority. Obama didn’t only continue Bush’s attacks on civil liberties; he grossly accelerated them and increased their ferocity.
FOX News is barely referring to Obama as a Liberal nowadays. Admittedly, that’s because buzzwords like “socialist”, “communist” and “Muslim” engender a far more emotive response from its TEA Party supporting audience. However, if labelling Obama a Liberal is hurting anyone, it’s hurting real Liberals. Liberalism stands for individual rights, the sovereignty of the individual, personal freedoms and equality. That is not what Obama has delivered.
The Obama presidency has defended the violation of human rights and has destroyed personal privacy. Obama may be calling himself a Liberal, but real Liberals certainly shouldn’t.
This article originally appeared on the Urban Times.
About the Author
Excellent piece!