The Moment of Imperial Crisis: Chapter VII

In the early years of the twenty-first century, as the Empire wrestled with the last remnants of its Republican heritage, the time came, as it always must, when the claims of liberty finally came up against the claims of executive power to determine the fate of the Empire.   The demands of imperial warfare in new provinces and the reluctance among the old provinces to contribute to their own repression, continually tempted the executing arm of the government to bring the tools of foreign occupation home. The more the Empire had become used to torture and spying among other peoples, the flimsier were the barriers to turning these tools against their own people; thus fatally corrupting the very values they were supposed to be defending.   So it was in Rome; so it was in America.

When the American Senate, deeply corrupt, but still possessed of a dim memory of faded powers, balked at the widespread abuses and incompetence of the Emperor, the stage was set for the final struggle.   The revelation that the Emperor had completely ignored the laws of the land, and was engaged in spying on his own people, and claimed it as a defence of the same people, put into motion yet once more the mechanism of impeachment. Unwieldy as it was, it had begun to appear more and more often,   being as it was the ultimate method of reining in the vagaries of the Emperors -- as one wag put it, in American slang: Òhitting the donkey with a 2x4 to get his attentionÓ.

The refusal to reaffirm The Patriot Act, a measure that had been passed in the shadow of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, and which used the images of patriotism to undermine the patriotic liberties of the nation, was the moment when the Emperor and his satraps determined that the fate of the Empire was at stake.   While it took some time to fully unfold,   the demands of Empire had to come first. Before a handpicked audience of senior military figures and his supporters, and against a backdrop labelled ÒVictory Imperilled!Ó the Emperor accused the legislative branch of government of becoming an obstacle to the defence of America.   ÒAlthough they mean well,Ó he thundered, Òthey are undermining our military, and putting the rights of terrorists before the rights of Americans!Ó He called upon the military to......