The NDAA -- that's the National Defense Authorization Act, which contains a ludicrously un-American and anti-democratic section allowing the US military to detain, torture/interrogate, and even kill American citizens without providing access to a trial or attorney, was not exactly the result of a well-functioning democratic system.

It's arguably the worst piece of legislation since the Enabling Act of 1933, which facilitated Adolf Hitler's rise. (Yes, I know, using the H-word in political comparison is taboo, but in this case it is entirely justified. The NDAA shreds the Bill of Rights and plunges America into a frightening, quasi-totalitarian state that more closely resembles V For Vendetta than the America I learned about in civics class.)

"The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision [...] was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing," as the ACLU recently noted.

The people did not ask for this! Congress has that 9% approval rating for a reason. By the way, when a legislative body's approval rating is in the single digits, that's not exactly a sign of a healthy democracy, but rather an oligarchy which hasn't yet eliminated all the trappings of a representative democratic republic.

So what to do? Aside from electing myself to office (I'm old enough to run for Congress, but shudder at the thought), the answer is to do the following:

1) Find a politician who will actually challenge the status quo. Donate time or money to that person's campaign and vote for them. Although I don't agree with all of Ron Paul's policy, I plan to vote for him. Before the NDAA passed the Senate, and before the TSA groped my privates without cause, and before I discovered we do not have a free press (none of the cable networks are giving more than passing mentions of the NDAA in their nightly programming), I was not a Ron Paul guy.

Now I am. And his son, Rand Paul, is one of only seven Senators who voted against the NDAA. It's like a father and son constitutional protection team. So yes, I'll vote for Ron Paul. Our nation certainly cannot get any worse, and if he manages to reign in even a small part of this police state insanity, it will be a vote well cast.

2) Put pressure on Washington to enact new laws restricting Congress from insider trading, accepting donations or financial contributions of any kind from lobbyists, voting on legislation which presents profoundly obvious conflicts of interest, or invalidating the Bill of Rights in any way -- no legal loopholes, no false declaration of war, no exceptions. Even if World War III broke out tomorrow, Congress should not have the authority to kill Americans in the street or abduct political dissidents without due process. That should be absolutely obvious, but apparently it's not.

3) Put pressure on them to enact new laws strictly regulating local and state police, and providing harsh penalties for abuse of power. When America loses all faith in its law enforcement -- which we are close to doing -- we descend into anarchy. Not acceptable. I used to believe our police departments were mostly professional, with a few exceptions. After seeing reports of students being pepper-sprayed and held in cages for hours for merely exercising their First Amendment rights, in some cases being forced to urinate on each other in these cages, I now believe some of our police departments engage in institutionalized thuggery, with a few cases of professionalism.

That needs to be fixed. This is just a start. But I think it'd be a good one.

More info on the NDAA:

ACLU's take

Amnesty's take -- highly recommended

Former FBI agent's analysis -- also recommended

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