{"id":16474,"date":"2021-09-11T09:20:08","date_gmt":"2021-09-11T13:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=16474"},"modified":"2021-09-11T09:20:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-11T13:20:08","slug":"9-11-how-george-w-bush-redefined-american-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/11\/9-11-how-george-w-bush-redefined-american-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"9\/11: How George W. Bush Redefined American Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thanks to Pixabay & rabedirkwennigsen \/ 25 for toxic waste photo<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Future of Freedom Foundation, September 2009 <\/a><\/div>\n
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How George W. Bush Redefined American Freedom<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

George W. Bush is gone from Washington but his legacy, like an abandoned toxic waste dump, lingers on. Like President Franklin Roosevelt before him, President Bush helped redefine American freedom<\/strong>. And like Roosevelt\u2019s, Bush\u2019s changes were perversions of the clear vision the Founding Fathers bequeathed to us.What did freedom mean in the era of George Bush? In Iraq in September 2004, the U.S. military constructed Camp Liberty, a tent compound to house Iraqi detainees next to the Abu Ghraib prison. (The torture scandal and photos had been revealed in late April.) Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller declared that Camp Liberty and other changes in the treatment of Iraqi prisoners were \u201crestoring the honor of America.\u201d\u201cCamp Liberty\u201d was typical of the rhetorical strategy of the Bush administration: empty words in lieu of basic decency and honest dealing.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, President Bush invoked freedom to sanctify his war on terrorism.<\/strong> In his Oval Office address on the night of September 11, 2001, Bush declared, \u201cAmerica was targeted for attack because we\u2019re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.\u201d He pronounced authoritatively on the motives of the attackers even before the FBI and CIA knew their identities. He never offered evidence that that was al-Qaeda\u2019s prime motivation.<\/p>\n

Bush rarely missed a chance to proclaim that the war on terrorism was being fought to save freedom \u2014 either U.S. freedom, or world freedom, or the freedom of future generations. In 2002, he proclaimed, \u201cWe are resolved to rout out terror wherever it exists to save the world for freedom.\u201d He contrasted freedom and terror as if they were the two ends of a seesaw. Because terror is the enemy of government, government necessarily becomes the champion of freedom. But this simple dichotomy made sense only if terrorists were the sole threat to freedom.<\/p>\n

Once Bush proclaimed that freedom was his goal, then all opponents automatically became enemies of freedom. In the first presidential candidates\u2019 debate with Sen. John Kerry in 2004, Bush explained away the fierce opposition to the U.S. military in Iraq: \u201cThey\u2019re fighting us because they\u2019re fighting freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1776, \u201cLet Freedom Ring\u201d was a response to the ringing of the Liberty Bell after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In contrast, those attending the 2004 Republican National Convention waved signs proclaiming, \u201cLet Freedom Reign.\u201d That was the phrase that Bush scrawled on a piece of paper in June 2004 when National Security Adviser Condi Rice informed him that sovereignty in Iraq had been transferred to Iyad Allawi, the former CIA operative Bush had chosen to head Iraq\u2019s government. Supposedly, it took only a mere signing of a piece of paper by the U.S. occupation authority for Iraqis to have sovereignty \u2014 even though an American puppet remained at the head of the government, and even though U.S. military forces continued bombarding civilians in cities throughout the country.<\/p>\n

Military power and freedom<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Bush, military power was practically freedom incarnate. He informed Congress in 2002 that the \u201cDepartment of Defense has become the most powerful force for freedom the world has ever seen.\u201d In his 2002 State of the Union address, after bragging about victories in Afghanistan, he proclaimed, \u201cWe have shown freedom\u2019s power.\u201d In an April 2003 speech to workers at the Army Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio, he declared, \u201cYou build the weapons you build here because we love freedom in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Bush, the Pentagon budget was perhaps the clearest measure of America\u2019s devotion to freedom. At an April 9, 2002, Republican fundraiser in Connecticut, he bragged that \u201cmy defense budget is the largest increase in 20 years. You know, the price of freedom is high, but for me it\u2019s never too high because we fight for freedom.\u201d And if the government seized all of every citizen\u2019s paycheck \u2014 instead of only 38 percent of it \u2014 and used all the revenue to bankroll foreign military conquests, Americans would have absolute freedom.<\/p>\n

Bush often spoke as if all he needed to do was pronounce the word \u201cfreedom\u201d and all humanity was obliged to obey his commands. He declared in July 2003 that, because of U.S. military action in Iraq, people were \u201cgoing to find out the word \u2018freedom\u2019 and \u2018America\u2019 are synonymous.\u201d Freedom, Iraqi-style, apparently meant giving the U.S. military the right to kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians and to obliterate the core of cities such as Fallujah. But the details of U.S. action in Iraq were irrelevant because of the transcendent goal Bush perennially proclaimed.<\/p>\n

In his 2004 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Bush declared, \u201cI believe in the transformational power of liberty: The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.\u201d That was a formal renunciation of much of what America had once stood for. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, warned in 1795, \u201cOf all enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.\u201d But, from Bush\u2019s view, U.S. military aggression is as much a force for liberation as any political or religious ideology ever claimed in the past.<\/p>\n

Limiting government power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bush declared on the first anniversary of the 9\/11 terrorist attacks that \u201cthere is a line in our time \u2026 between the defenders of human liberty, and those who seek to master the minds and souls of others.\u201d But if the United States claims the right to attack the people of any foreign regime that refuses to swear allegiance to the latest U.S. definition of freedom or democracy, the world will see America as the aggressor shackling the minds and wills of people around the world.<\/p>\n

The more nations that America attacks in the name of liberty, the more foreigners will perceive America as the greatest threat both to their peace and self-rule. Not surprisingly, Bush\u2019s policies resulted in a collapse in the world\u2019s respect for the United States.<\/p>\n

In the 18th century, \u201cThe Restraint of Government is the True Liberty and Freedom of the People\u201d was a common American saying.<\/p>\n

But for President Bush, freedom had little or nothing to do with limits on government powe<\/strong>r. Bush told a high-school audience in 2002, \u201cI will not let \u2014 your Government\u2019s not going to let people destroy the freedoms<\/em> that we love in America.\u201d In a 2003 speech at the Bonaparte Auditorium at FBI headquarters in Washington, Bush declared, \u201cFor years the freedom of our people were [sic] really never in doubt because no one ever thought that the terrorists or anybody could come and hurt America. But that changed.\u201d Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge reflected the attitude of the Bush administration when he announced, \u201cLiberty is the most precious gift we offer our citizens.\u201d If freedom is a gift from the government to the people, then government can take freedom away at its pleasure.<\/p>\n

Respect for individual rights is the bulwark of freedom. Bush proudly declared in 2003, \u201cNo president has ever done more for human rights than I have.\u201d But, in order to defeat terrorists, he claimed the right to destroy all rights by using the \u201cenemy combatant\u201d label. Justice Antonin Scalia rightly noted in 2004, \u201cThe very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive.\u201d But this was a luxury that American could no longer afford, at least according to the administration. The Bush administration fought tooth and nail to preserve the president\u2019s boundless power to strip people of all rights on the basis of his mere assertion. The administration continually dragged its feet with respect to obeying Supreme Court decisions that limited the president\u2019s power.<\/p>\n

The Founding Fathers sought to protect freedom by creating a government of laws, not of men. But Bush freedom<\/em> required the president to rise above federal law. The Justice Department advised the White House that the president\u2019s power to authorize torture was not constrained by the federal statute book because of \u201cthe President\u2019s inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign against al-Qaeda and its allies.\u201d Justice Department memos from Bush\u2019s first term (released this past March) make it stark that the president\u2019s brain trust believed that the Constitution was as archaic and irrelevant as a covered wagon.<\/p>\n

On the home front, Bush freedom<\/em> meant \u201cfree speech zones\u201d where demonstrators were quarantined to avoid tainting presidential photo opportunities. Bush freedom<\/em> meant allowing the National Security Agency to vacuum up Americans\u2019 email without a warrant. Bush freedom<\/em> meant entitling the Justice Department to round up the names of book buyers and library users under the USA PATRIOT Act.<\/p>\n

Bush freedom<\/em> was based on boundless trust in the righteousness of the rulers and all their actions. Bush offered Americans the same type of freedom that paternalist kings offered their subjects in distant eras. But Bush\u2019s supposedly lofty intentions were no substitute for the Constitution and the rule of law.<\/p>\n

Freedom must not become simply another term for politicians to invoke to consecrate their power. Rather than stirring patriotic pride, Bush\u2019s invocations of freedom should have set off Americans\u2019 warning bells. It remains to be seen how much lasting damage he has done to Americans\u2019 vocabulary and political understanding.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the September 2009 edition of Freedom Daily<\/strong>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Future of Freedom Foundation, September 2009 How George W. Bush Redefined American Freedom by James Bovard George W. Bush is gone from Washington but his legacy, like an abandoned toxic waste dump, lingers on. Like President Franklin Roosevelt before him, President Bush helped redefine American freedom. And like Roosevelt\u2019s, Bush\u2019s changes were perversions of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,137,36,12,75],"class_list":["post-16474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-freedom","tag-george-w-bush","tag-iraq","tag-torture","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\n9\/11: How George W. Bush Redefined American Freedom - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"George W. 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Bush Redefined American Freedom"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/","name":"James Bovard","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f","name":"Jim","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Jim"},"description":"Bovard's homepage is at http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16474"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16481,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16474\/revisions\/16481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}