By Dan Witrock

I turn the TV on and watch President Bush speak about his joys of how, “the American people have spoken, and they want me as their President.” It’s sad that he feels this way, since almost half of the country really doesn’t want him as president; but of course this doesn’t matter. Though I don’t see the re-election of Bush as a good thing, the most disconcerting thing about everything that’s happened in the past week is the structure of our “new” government, which I believe is now a unilateral government.

The Republicans now dominate every single branch of the U.S. Government. The checks and balances system of opposite political parties being able to check on other branches is now a thing of the past. The Senate and the House of Representatives now have a higher percentage of Republicans to Democrats in office, creating a one-sided Congress. Bush claims the “new Congress will have historic opportunities,” and this is true! With the Judicial Branch also having a majority of Republicans, every branch of the government is leaning towards the Republicans. Now, when Republicans want to pass a bill, it can go through each branch of the government and get a majority vote of their own people accepting their legislations and easily passing underneath the public’s eye. When Bills and Acts get passed, they aren’t played on the news and the American Public doesn’t find out about them. People didn’t find out about the Patriot Act until over a year after it was passed. Watch out for the next four years, because our freedoms are going to begin to disappear. This government is no longer a checks and balances system through democracy but much closer to one political party having control over the entire government; which sounds much closer to a dictatorship. Absolute or despotic control or power is the definition of a dictatorship, and well absolute power sounds about what the Republicans have in this country; with Bush at the head of power.

For someone to say, “if you don’t like our country, then get out” is an ignorant view that our government can never change, and that it will always be a fair and just place to live. Some people don’t see that things are changing as we speak; the middle class is shrinking as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The two extremes cannot rise too far without toppling over and causing massive changes, sometimes as great as revolutions and uprisings.

Through this unilateral government expect to see new changes. Expect to see President Bush’s amendment on banning gay marriage become a reality soon. Expect to see the amendment that Presidents must be born in the U.S. taken out of the constitution so that Schwarzenegger might possibly run in the years to come. Expect to see more people thrown into court for treason because of trying to spread ideas or research separate forms of government than our own.

The future of the world lies in question as this new unilateral government presides over the most powerful country in the world. The notion that our government has the “moral authority” over all other countries because of our success at democracy is a ridiculous opinion. We were able to succeed economically so well because of the forces we exerted on third world countries by reaping their man power and exports as we’re now doing again in Iraq, by exporting mass amounts of oil back to the US for consumption.

We spread our views of democracy, yet we are no longer one ourselves. Beware of the future and what it holds for all of us; freedoms will become a thing of the past.