The British could not do it, in 1775-1781, and 1812-1815. Our own people could not do it during the Civil War in 1861-1865. We withstood the terror of Pearl Harbor and Nazism and we even survived the Watergate scandal that threatened our US Constitution.

Now an egomaniac Muslim imam, Osama bin Ladin, merely employed 19 evil men to kill 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001 and his deed succeeded in beginning the unraveling of the US Constitution and American freedom.

Self-serving and dishonest people in government used the horror of 9/11 to reinforce their own unending thirst for unlimited power and now we have a federal executive that is a virtual dictator. Those Americans who cower in fear from a handful of terrorist thugs or who disingenuously use that fear to fortify their own political goals refuse to see or admit this.

I am only 50 years old, but old enough to see our country go from the days when our precious US Constitution worked, when it provided a check and balance to unlimited power. Our nation's founders foresaw the dangers of unchecked power and laboriously created a system that would share power among branches with competing interests and constituencies.

Has American history been without it's shameful times? Of course not! Human slavery was clearly the darkest blot on our national past. That resulted in a bloody civil war.

What we did to innocent Japanese-Americans during World War II is another dark blot, we did not lock up German-Americans, only Japanese-Americans, was that racial?

The sad truth is, as we look triumphantly at how our government responded to executive abuse in the Watergate scandal, that only happened because Richard Nixon did not destroy his tapes that proved his guilt. Otherwise he would have survived Watergate.

But what Richard Nixon did in the 1970s pales in comparison to the mind boggling abuse of power under the Bush/Cheney Administration.

Today, thanks to the 2006 Military Commissions Act that my liberal Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown shamefully voted for out of political cowardice, the President of the United States can stripped ANY human being, American or not, of his or her Hapeas Corpus rights to presumed innocence until proven guilty by simply declaring him or her an enemy combatant. Mr. Bush could declare me an enemy combatant if he felt my speech was a real threat to national security, or for whatever reason he deemed.

The President's legal team has redefined torture where it is only torture if there is permanent organ injury or death and therefore, according to this new definition, can "honestly" say his administration does not torture. And Fox "24" obsessed Americans say "Go for it, torture those bastards!".

The President and his team intentionally mislead Americans by criticizing those who insist on court supervision for wiretapping, even with emergency provisions, saying his opponents oppose ANY wiretapping of criminal suspects and therefore those nasty terrorists will get away with carrying out their terrorist attack because we will be unable to listen in on their conversation. Bullshit. The reality is the executive branch wants unfettered ability to listen in on ANYONE's conversation 24 by 7 regardless of probable cause. Fuck the Bill of Rights - That's a quaint outdated idea in the pre-instantaneous weapons of mass destruction era.

Many Americans, especially those who support this executive abuse of power, say "So what?". So what if the President has the power to lock anyone away in a military brig without a lawyer or trial? So what if the President can order the torture of ANY "suspect"? So what if the President taps into every American's phone calls and emails? Who cares? What do I have to hide? I'm a good law abiding American. I have nothing to fear.

Tell that to the many innocent Muslim men rounded up after 9/11. Tell that to the innocent Canadian sent to Syria to be tortured only to be exonerated later "with an apology".

When Hillary Clinton is elected President in 2008, it will be interesting to see all those Republican supporters of President Bush howl when President Clinton uses those expanded executive powers that the Bush/Cheney team helped bring about.

And Hillary will be a gentle lady compared to a President Rudolph Giuliani - God help America and the world if Giuliani is elected President!

I grow more and more pessimistic that our Constitutional democracy will survive this latest assault on freedom and the sad truth is because Americans will allow it to die because of fear, because of cowardice.

Osama bin Ladin is succeeding beyond his wildest dreams.