This post on DU says it all about the threat to our republic and its values posed by the neoconservative movement cloaked in false christianity, using fear and racism to convince America to abandon the values of the founding fathers. Note the specific use of the bill of rights amendments here:
"Though the dangers that our nation faces today are clearly minor compared to those we faced during nearly half a century of the Cold War, George W. Bush has declared a state of permanent war in our country and virtually suspended the freedoms and rights guaranteed to us in our Constitution; he invaded and occupied a nation which posed no threat to us, spawning a war that shows no signs of abating after more than four years; he violated our Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches with his warrantless spying on hundreds of thousands or millions of American citizens; and in his abusive treatment and torture of thousands of prisoners of war, he has repeatedly violated international law specified in the Geneva Convention of 1949, as well as the due process clause of our Fifth Amendment, our Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, to face one’s accusers, to be represented by counsel and to be informed of the charges against one’s self, and our Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. And our Republican Congress sat silently by while George Bush and Dick Cheney did all this."
A nice summary of how we are left with only 2 Amendments and the first one is threatened by intimidation and media control.
Here is a quote from Gore's new book that the article uses:
Rejecting the idea that Bush is either stupid or truly religious, Gore characterizes Bush in a nutshell like this:
"I’m convinced, however, that most of the president’s frequent departures from fact-based analysis have much more to do with his right-wing political and economic ideology than with the Bible…. Now, with the radical Right, we have a political faction disguised as a religious sect, and the president of the United States is heading it. The obvious irony is that Bush uses a religious blind faith to hide what is actually an extremist political philosophy with a disdain for social justice that is anything but pious by the standards of any respected faith tradition I know.
The truth about this particular brand of faith-based politics is that President Bush has stolen the symbolism and body language of religion and used it to disguise the most radical effort in American history to take what belongs to the American people and give as much of it as possible to the already wealthy and privileged…
Make no mistake: It is the president’s reactionary ideology, not his religious faith, that is the source of his troubling inflexibility. Whatever his religious views, President Bush has such an absolute certainty in the validity of his rigid right-wing ideology that he does not feel the same desire that many of us would in gathering facts relevant to the questions at hand."
Gore also uses Roosevelts term "Economic Royalists" to describe Neoconservative attitudes towards poverty:
The truth about this particular brand of faith-based politics is that President Bush has stolen the symbolism and body language of religion and used it to disguise the most radical effort in American history to take what belongs to the American people and give as much of it as possible to the already wealthy and privileged…
Make no mistake: It is the president’s reactionary ideology, not his religious faith, that is the source of his troubling inflexibility. Whatever his religious views, President Bush has such an absolute certainty in the validity of his rigid right-wing ideology that he does not feel the same desire that many of us would in gathering facts relevant to the questions at hand."
Gore also uses Roosevelts term "Economic Royalists" to describe Neoconservative attitudes towards poverty:
He describes the economic royalists as those
"who are primarily interested in eliminating as much of their own taxation as possible and removing all inconvenient regulatory obstacles. Their ideology – which they and
Bush believe with almost religious fervor – is based on several key elements:
First, there is no such thing as “the public interest”; that phrase represents a dangerous fiction created as an excuse to impose unfair burdens on the wealthy and powerful.
Second, laws and regulations are also bad – except when they can be used on behalf of this group, which turns out to be often. It follows, therefore, that whenever laws must be enforced and regulations administered, it is important to assign those responsibilities to individuals who… reliably serve the narrow and specific interests of this small group…
What members of this coalition seem to spend much of their time and energy worrying about is the impact of government policy on the behavior of poor people. They are deeply concerned, for example, that government programs to provide health care, housing, social insurance, and other financial support will adversely affect work incentives"
Finally Gore's quote on the Neoconservative philsophy versus the consitution;
"The unifying theme now being pushed by this coalition is actually an American heresy, a highly developed political philosophy that is fundamentally at odds with the founding principles of the United States of America… In America, we believe that God endowed individuals with unalienable rights; we do not believe that God has endowed George Bush – or any political leader – with a divine right to exercise power."
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