Saturday, Nov. 12 marked the 10th (or 11th or 12th, who’s counting anymore?) Republican presidential debate. At this point, one would think that Americans would know everything about each candidate, right down to where they fall on the ever important boxers or briefs debate. However, thanks to inequitable speaking time and straight out question dodging, we, as Americans, don’t.

Yet, last Saturday’s debate did provide the public with some useful information of a very disturbing nature. Of the eight “major” candidates seeking the Republican nomination (don’t tell me you forgot about Gary Johnson), almost all of them supported President Obama on one issue: the assassination of a United States citizen without trial. That’s downright eerie.

The citizen in question was an American-born cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki earned degrees in civil engineering and education leadership at American universities. During his college years, he became more radical and, with no formal training, began preaching to online audiences about Western occupation of the Middle East.

It is very likely that al-Awlaki’s YouTube videos encouraged more than one young Muslim-American to seek jihad. However, the CIA, by Obama’s orders, killed al-Awlaki in a drone attack without him ever appearing in a courtroom.

Six of the eight Republican candidates on stage, with the notable exceptions of Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Jon Huntsman, condoned the attack. Gov. Mitt Romney, who first answered the question, said that, because al-Awlaki had sided with an organization that had “declared war on America,” he was fair game for assassination.

This presents us with the troubling notion that the President of the United States could theoretically order the death of any American citizen who he alone deemed to be at war with the United States. The power that gives to the executive office, along with the ambiguous definition we now hold of “war,” should be troubling to every true conservative who claims to want a limited government.

Still, the most breathtaking answer may have come from former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich argued that al-Awlaki did get a trial, since his case was reviewed by a board of intelligence officials before his assassination was recommended to the president.

Thankfully, my cockney idea that civil liberties still exist was shared by two of the candidates, both of whom received a disproportionate amount of time during the debate. Both Congressman Ron Paul and Huntsman objected to the assassination as a violation of the rule of law, which exists for a reason.

I particularly appreciated Paul’s chiding of his fellow Republicans’ hypocrisy when he noted that the very people who were arguing most strongly against the president’s running of medical care were now “giving this power to the president to be the prosecutor, the executor, the judge and the jury.”

Besides, the Supreme Court, which both sides of the debate choose to ignore whenever it suits them, has already ruled on the matter. The opinion in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, as written by Sandra Day O’Connor, argued that even enemy combatants had a right to contest their status before a “neutral decision-maker.” While that particular term is a little vague, I would doubt any of the court’s justices would agree that the executive branch is exactly neutral in the matter.

As one who continues to believe in limited government and due process, the actions of the P

resident of the United States and the complacent nature of most of the Republican field worries me. In all likelihood, our next commander-in-chief will be someone who believes that it is acceptable to kill American citizens based on flimsy procedure.

I wonder if the American people will find this acceptable as well.