@agnophilo - Obama has railroaded the constitution by signing the NDAA, which allows Americans to be detained indefinitely without trial. He restored the draconian Patriot Act of 2001 which allows warrantless wiretipping. He has arrested more whistleblowers than any president in history using the infamous Espionage Act of 1917. His illegal drone strikes have even caused the murder of several American citizens. Despite his promises to the contrary, Guantanamo Bay remains open, torturing in defiance on the ban against **Cruel and Unusual punishment**. Despite admitting to using Marijuana himself, he wastes millions of taxpayer dollars on an unconstitutional drug war. Only yesterday Obama signed a cybersecurity document which even further attacks our basic rights and liberties. These are not nutjob conservative-radio opinions that liberals can just dismiss–these are documents signed by the man’s own hand. Look them up for yourself.

@TheSutraDude - He seems to only take the input he wants to hear; he certainly isn’t taking any input from our Bill of Rights.

@agnophilo - You are right; I am blaming him for everything, at least all the things that are on this list. I am blaming him because he is the president and it is his responsibility to get things done.

So yes, the War on Drugs wasn’t his idea. But he is continuing its failed policies and has not taken a stand against it. Tolerating evil is only one step down from being evil yourself.

You are also correct about the Guantanamo funding fiasco; both parties are to blame, but again it is the president’s job to find a way. In four years, he did not do that.

Congress did pass a law granting the president excessive power–but that mean he had to use those powers! He could have said, **wait, this is unconstitutional! I am not going to leave the tools of dictatorship around for the first leader who is cynical or ruthless enough to pick them up and use them against my people!**

The act of 1917 has been on the books, but has not been used since the Red Scare. It is currently being used to prosecute against Wikileaks, an organization guilty of nothing save for holding the government accountable to its people.

Murder is defined as unlawful killing, and killing a 16-year-old boy in the attempt to kill his father without due process–by a military action on U.S. soil–IS an unlawful killing.

You can say that many people recklessly hate Obama and this is true; but at least you must acknowledge that liberals bend themselves in knots trying to defend him. If a conservative politician had done what Obama has, Liberals would be side by side with me in the street calling for his impeachment. It is as if simply by being a Democrat–by supporting gay rights and passing out a welfare check–he has a get-out-of-jail-free card. I myself don’t believe he is the **Dictator** some claim him to be, but he is foolhardily allowing such a situation to take place in the future due to his total abandonment of civil liberties and his increase of the nanny state.

Here is a link to the proposed draft: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/10/15/cybersecurity_executive_order_mary_bono_mack_other_republicans_warn_it_could.html

@agnophilo - **Do you honestly think legalizing pot should’ve been his number one priority? Do you think that would’ve worked out well?**

Not his number one priority, but he could have at least put the issue before congress or tried to curtail the number of arrests. If you were a child who has been forced into the welfare/foster care system because his father is doing five years for a dime bag, you might feel differently about how the War on Drugs rates as  a **priority**. Legalization would de-clog the prison system, boost the economy and create taxable revenue. At the same time it would weaken the prison-industrial complex, which is exactly why no demopublican would ever do it. I hope someday to be proven wrong about this but I doubt it.

**Being an american citizen does not mean you cannot also be an enemy combatant or a terrorist any more than it makes it illegal for a police officer to shoot you if you take a hostage.**

Yes, american citizens can be enemy combatants. But they are at least obligated to *attempt* to arrest that hostage taker, not just *Disappear* them or blow them up with a drone strike. The 16 year old who was killed, for example, was Anwar Al-Awlaki’s son. He was on his way to a picnic with friends. I doubt officers in-person would have made the same mistake.

You were wrong about Obama standing up for civil rights in the NDAA, by the way. The Indefinite Detention provision still exists and as of now is only being blocked by Rand Paul in Congress: http://rt.com/usa/news/rand-paul-2016-sen-168/

**Leaking classified information is illegal. Do you think it should be legal? You didn’t answer me the first time I asked.**

Yes, at least in the way it was done by Manning and Wikileaks. Had their leak included sensitive information such as troop locations and strengths, I would feel differently. What it included, however, was a egrarious list of foreign policy blunders and abuses by government organizations, including the Department of State. The government is accountable to its people and the people have the right to access such information when making political choices.

 **as for the “nanny state” some things are more efficient to do collectively and some things are impossible to do individually, like maintain roads, bridges and highways which benefit everyone.**

This is a slippery slope fallacy. The moment anyone talks about cutting government programs, people immediately jump to Roads, Bridges, and water–as though we are for scrapping the whole thing. No one is talking about letting bridges and roads fall apart; what we are talking about is trillions poured into the political black hole of the middle east, a welfare program that gives money to social parasites who harrass folks to trade their gas cards for alcohol, and a Department of Education which maintains paper copies of EVERYTHING despite the huge cost to taxpayers and the environment. This is about REFORM, not elimination. WIC, for example, is much better than welfare because it emphasizes healthy food choices.

The trouble with the cybersecurity order, as well as NDAA, Patriot Act, and many other laws this president has created or encouraged, is that they are so open to interpretation. Civil Liberties set concrete borders over which agents of the law MUST NOT cross, under any circumstances. This is what gives us our freedom. The **Terror-Scare Laws** all have one thing in common: they open up this boundary. Under these laws, all any arresting agent has to do is have a **suspicion** that you are a **terrorist** to arrest you. You could be anyone–a protester, a whistleblower, an average person going about your day. As I understand it, a Terrorist is someone who uses fear to take away your way of life and your right to make choices for yourself. Under this definition, the U.S. government is filled with a plague of terrorists.