(by TZ)

In the upcoming elections there will be said to be a list of non-negotiable issues, but I only see two in the bigger picture.

First is the nearly complete erosion of civil rights in the name of fighting terrorism.

Obama has said he will sign the defense authorization that allows the military to arrest anyone including a US Citizen in the US without a warrant, probable cause, and they will be denied a lawyer and held indefinitely. Lawyers attempting to defend such will probably be arrested themselves.

Do you feel confident Obama will never find an excuse to round up pro-lifers and put them into FEMA camps? Charge pro-life advocacy organizations with material support of terrorism and seize their assets? A real persecution of the Catholic church, at least the Bishops holding true to orthodoxy? Do not think that any pro-life advocate or organization is safe the next time there is an explosion near a clinic even if it is from a defective propane tank.

I can also point out someone should ask the GOP candidates that now they would have the same power, can they not declare abortion a form of terror and end it within a few days of taking office? Most have already rejected “The Rule of Law”.

There are a list of social issue non-negotiables, but what happens when presenting such a list becomes advocacy for terrorism? When you have no right to speak? When you can be imprisoned or assassinated if you do? Will you even be safe in another country?

Or what #Occupy does which DHS is already looking at, or a Tea Party gathering with all those gun-owners? Progressives should also hold to this as strongly as all Christians and other people of faith who have ever suffered persecution.

Any candidate for any office that doesn’t believe in due process, warrants, habeas corpus, and the rest of the Constitutional rights U.S. citizens used to enjoy should be immediately and irredeemably rejected.

So the first fundamental non-negotiable is to restore the Constitution and civil rights to what they were before the fear-mongering of 9/11 started. If we don’t reverse it now we might be in for a dark night like the USSR, Maoist China, or the Third Reich. Remember that Hitler was granted every power he exercised by democratic means, not through violence. Gradually, and first to fix the chaos – he did stop the Taxi Murders. But the true cost became visible far too late. If the terrorists really hate our freedoms, they already have a near total victory.

The second is related. End the crony-capitalism and corruption. Taking any money from Wall Street, a hedge fund, or a big bank ought to immediately disqualify the candidate from your vote since they cannot be trusted no matter what they say on any other issue or what their earlier record might be.

The economy is already in a tailspin, or about to stall and crash. There is a good chance that people will be starving because of the disruption – the food on grocery store shelves doesn’t simply appear. Food Stamp cards don’t help if the shelves are empty. Trucks, trains, which need fuel and parts, all which need to be paid for. There are already riots and bank-runs in Greece. Watch Europe closely.

We cannot slow or stop this without fundamental change. Preserving the oligarchy will prove as fatal to the rest of the economy as it has to housing – we now have abandoned houses, squatters, people who can’t move because they can’t sell, homelessness, broken chains of title, a frozen market that sinks when it unfreezes. That must be allowed to crash even if it takes every Wall Street firm and bank into receivership and every CEO and CFO into prison. Will we allow freezing the rest of the economy into some kind of third-world disaster area just to save the big banks and wall street?

This again is something Christians, #Occupy, Progressives, and the Tea Party ought to agree on. We can only fix the economy if we get past the corruption.

If we don’t make both of these fundamental non-negotiables for every candidate at every level of office in the next election, there may be no country, economy, or rights to do it later, and no other list of “non-negotiables” will matter.

Both can be summed up under the phrase “Rule of Law”. There is one law for government, individuals, the rich, the poor, everyone.

If we prefer to fight with each other, and elect totalitarian dictators that will preserve the oligarchy but throw our side a few juicy bones – and I’m talking to every group here – we will only get a dictatorship of the oligarchs and nothing else since the rest will cancel out. If we decide instead to destroy the violations and corruption, we can iron out our differences as together we heal the deep wounds in our country as we differ mainly in means, not ends.