I try to avert my eyes from the contents of the magazine racks at supermarket checkout stands because I inevitably learn something about the relationship status of a celebrity that I don’t even want to know. Although, the other day a Newsweek cover caught my eye because it asked a question that surprised me: “How much Power should they have?” I am so cynical lately about politics and the media that to see a major publication actually questioning the government gave me pause.

I finally got around to reading the article today and it’s fairly well done. To me it kind of tiptoes around the issues. They are trying to be “fair” I suppose. The authors did draw a connection that I think is important for Americans to understand. Presidents are power hungry. They will always run roughshod over the rights they are charged to protect.

Though the choice is rarely stated—or perhaps even conscious—a president will almost always choose to violate individual rights over the risk of losing a war. When the French threatened American sovereignty on the high seas in 1798, John Adams supported the Alien and Sedition Acts, blatantly punishing free speech as traitorous. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus (the rule giving citizens a right to take their grievances to court). During World War I, Woodrow Wilson allowed officials to prosecute anyone for criticizing the government. During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt allowed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to promiscuously wiretap, and ordered Japanese-Americans placed in internment camps. As the Vietnam War dragged on and domestic dissent arose, Richard Nixon—citing his Demo-cratic predecessors FDR and Lyndon Johnson—authorized bugging and wiretapping against domestic “subversives.” None of these steps, it should be pointed out, made the nation appreciably safer. (emphasis mine)

One would think that presidents would understand this. They can not be complete idiots and they have scores of advisors and lawyers surrounding them. I think they just don’t care. But what can I do?