Kerosenuser,
Etal...
The government's power grab, or abuse of power, started in the very early days.
Remember hearing about Shay's Rebellion?
It really got going in earnest during the administration of the (then divided...) nation's first Republican president, and has generally grown and accelerated exponentially since.
It is the nature of the beast.
Te beast seems to feed and thrive the most during administrations, and congresses, where those in control speak loudest about their belief in "small government", "getting the government out of the way", "the government is the problem", and the like. IOW, it gets worse, fastest, while the very people who get elected claiming they will end it are in power.
In my life, that has been the Republicans.
Talk a good game... And do the opposite.
Yes, "the buck stops here", as HST says, and these current "scandals" happened on Obama's watch. I say "Scandals" because The data mining and the monitoring of personal communications records, was started, in plain view, and bragged upon, by the previous administration. The tug of war between the press and national security have been going on, in plain view, since the beginning of civilizations, and certainly since the beginning of the US.
Does anyone actually believe that one man can even know what is going on at all levels of a behemoth like the federal government, much less direct it all?
The IRS abuses seem to have originated within the IRS.
The surveillance programs were, and are, authorized by congress. Why hasn't congress just shut them down? All it takes is a resolution and a vote.
Not giving anyone a pass. Some of these issues are real discussions that need to take place, and they are not Dem/Rep or Obama/??? Questions--except to the genius talking Ayres puppets on FauxNewsErtainment.
I have Republican voting friends, who think that they are conservatives, that claim loudly that "the government has a duty to protect life", and "i want my government to do whatever it takes to keep us safe", and "if you are not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about. Until, that is, FauxNews explains that it is somehow different, and wrong, when a democratic president does the exact same thing.
It can be an abuse of power, or it can be necessary for safety, or it can be both. That is a legitimate question that we, as a country, should be having a real debate on. Actually, should have -- before passing the Patriot Act and building these huge data mining and analysis programs. In the wake of 9-11, most people, and especially most security conscious "conservative" Republican types, saw those things as necessary and good.
It is probably too late to unf**k it now.
