[Throwway32]

I never bought into Obama’s hype machine, but the drone strike was carried out by the United States armed forces, who are required to not follow illegal orders; via a chain of command. There is a different party in power now: have there been any prosecutions?Presumably there was a lot of legal advice that sanctioned the hit on a US citizen exercising his ostensible free speech rights,[1] otherwise it would not have happened.

[1] My personal opinion is that praising terror and “inspiring” others is not free speech, but I don’t pretend otherwise

[FakeComments]

There was a lot of pseudo-legal justification and lack of prosecutions for the Bush torture program as well, which was another violation of American norms.

You have a very idyllic view that people can’t break the rules and get away with it: Obama murdered an American in violation of the law, but there is a tradition of not holding presidents accountable for their crimes.

Personally, that lack of accountability seems to have led to a ratcheting level of presidential misbehavior and a collapse in societal norms — precisely what this thread is about.