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The Bush administration has exploited the fear created on Sept. 11 by declaring a "war on terror," passing the Patriot Act and assuming increased powers as a war-time president. To amplify fear and manipulate the public, it has generated constant lies, produced fake news stories, eliminated habeas corpus in dealing with those it decides, with or without evidence, are terrorists, legitimized torture and refused to respond to congressional subpoenas or oversight of any kind. This is the behavior of a dictatorship, not that of a democracy.

In a dictatorship, the torturers and those who defend torture are placed in charge of the law. At the request of the CIA, then-legal counsel to the president Alberto Gonzales solicited the "torture memo" from the Justice Department. After the resulting Abu Ghraib scandal, Bush did not fire Gonzales or turn him over to authorities to face criminal charges; instead, he appointed Gonzales attorney general of the United States of America.

Human Rights Watch reports that "to date, not a single military intelligence officer has been court-martialed in connection with abuse allegations in Iraq."

According to Wolf, the Bush administration sending a current of lies into the information stream is part classic psychological operations to generate a larger shift - a new reality in which the truth can no longer be ascertained and no longer counts. In this reality citizens no longer feel empowered or able to establish truth on either side - and therefore give up their agency, allowing them to be manipulated into supporting almost any state action.

When November 2008 arrives, can we assume that "leaders who are willing to abuse signing statements; withhold information from Congress; make secret decisions; lie to the American people; use fake evidence to justify a pre-emptive war; torture prisoners; tap people's phones; open their mail and e-mails; break into their houses; and now simply ignore Congress altogether - leaders with, currently a 29-percent approval rating - will say, "The decision rests in the hands of the people. May the votes be counted?"

Whether you are liberal, conservative or in between, if you love truth, freedom, justice and tolerance and value the system of checks and balances our government was founded upon, then it is past time for the Bush administration to be reined in or impeached so that our wounded Constitution can be nursed back to full vitality.

America's founders were wise men who rebelled at great personal risk against a feudal despotism. In trying to create a free, representative and equitable system of government that would endure, they were acutely aware that it was tyranny, not democracy, that was ever renewable.

• Lisle Hebert is a social worker who lives in Juneau.