-Caveat Lector-
Shuffling For Clinton
Paul Craig Roberts January 27, 1999
Before senators vote to acquit a president who has degraded our
highest political office and the law of the land, they should sit down
together with Christabel Bielenberg's story of life in National
Socialist Germany.
In 1934, Christabel Burton, an Englishwoman, married Peter Bielenberg,
a German lawyer. They settled in Hamburg and over the next years
experienced the breakdown of German law and institutions. In 1969,
Christabel Bielenberg told their story in her book, "The Past Is
Myself," which was resurrected 20 years later on Masterpiece Theatre
as "Christabel."
Adolph Hitler's National Socialists had a more difficult time
reshaping Germany to suit themselves than Lenin's Communists
experienced in Russia. The Czar's government in Russia, although
highly bureaucratized, was a personal form of government. Its
rationale and power flowed from the Czar. When the Czar and his family
were murdered by the Communists, his government ceased to exist,
thereby providing the Communists with a clean slate.
In contrast, German government institutions were independent of party
and person. The National Socialists had to contend for a while with
independent law and courts and accustomed practices that frustrated
their aims.
Hitler's government responded by ignoring inconvenient court
decisions, by putting in place a parallel court system, and by
replacing traditional law with its own administrative orders. As time
passed, fear mounted as new legal terms appeared that cloaked
lawlessness with language such as "protective custody," "People's
Court" and "offense against the natural healthy instinct of the
people."
After building fear with arbitrary power, the National Socialists were
able to force people step by step into compromise with their integrity
and complicity with evil.
The Hitlerization of Germany was achieved by accustoming the
population to a gradual degradation of law and morals until people
shuffled for the National Socialists the way prisoners, deprived of
shoelaces, shuffle in their shoes.
At this moment nothing but an uncertain Senate stands between us and
the degradation of our civic life by the Clintons.
Clinton has already corrupted the media, which shuffles for him.
Clinton has corrupted the Democrats in the House of Representatives,
who shuffle for him.
And now Bill Clinton and his government are betting that the U.S.
Senate will shuffle for him. Fearful of its constitutional duty, the
Senate is already shuffling toward an extra-constitutional compromise
that will add to our degradation.
Just as many Germans did not comprehend where the shuffle was leading
until it was too late, many Americans are not aware of the
implications of excusing the country's chief executive from perjury
and obstruction of justice.
If Clinton remains in office, the precedent will be established that
the president is above some laws in some circumstances. Caesar will
have crossed the Rubicon. The laws, above which the president sits,
will increase in number with time, and other executive branch
officials will gradually acquire by extension the distinction of being
higher than law.
Indeed, the executive branch is already filled with little dictators.
Wherever one looks, one sees administrative agencies behaving as if
they are legislative bodies. Clinton's EPA is attempting to force the
recall of federally certified Toyota/Lexus vehicles based on the
issuance of a retroactive standard.
Clinton's Justice Department is using coerced consent degrees to
establish illegal and unconstitutional racial quotas as the law of the
land.
Clinton's Treasury, Justice, State and Interior Departments are using
executive orders and abusing their regulatory authority in order to
gradually criminalize gun ownership.
Clinton's appointees are exercising power without being confirmed in
office by the Senate, and Clinton's executive branch departments are
implementing treaties that have not been ratified by the Senate.
Federal prosecutors fabricate cases in order to meet conviction quotas
for "white collar crimes," "environmental crimes" and drug crimes.
After a two-year investigation of prosecutorial misconduct, the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette concluded: "Perjury has become the coin of the
realm in federal law enforcement."
How is perjury to be rooted out of federal law enforcement when it
cannot be rooted out of the White House?
If the president can obstruct justice in order to hide sexual
misconduct, a prosecutor can obstruct justice in order to hide
misconduct that would exonerate a defendant.
Fair trials will disappear, and our civil rights will shuffle off the
stage.
Before Senators shuffle for Clinton, they should add up the stakes.
COPYRIGHT 1999 PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE,
INC.
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"...There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our
overthrow. Our destruction, should it ever come at all, will be
