Petition to grant Obomb-us immunity for crimes committed in office [Archive]

Occam's Banana

07-24-2013, 11:06 PM

I support granting Obama and all future presidents full and unqualified immunity for any and all crimes committed while they are in office.

The Late Roman Republic's office of dictator is the gold standard in matters of imperium. Sadly, America is just not quite up to snuff ... yet.

We really need to fix that before we can make a fully official transition from Empire de facto to Empire de jure.

We're almost there - and this immunity thing will help get us that much closer ...

FTA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator#Powers_and_abilities

As soon as the Dictator was appointed, he became the chief executive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_branch) and supreme military commander (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander-in-chief) of the Republic. [...]

The superiority of the Dictator's power to that of the consuls consisted chiefly of greater independence from the Senate, more extensive power of punishment without a trial by the people, and complete immunity from being held accountable for his actions. [...] There was no appeal from the sentence of the Dictator (unless the dictator changed his mind) [...] [Presidential "kill lists," anyone? - OB]

The Dictator's imperium granted him the powers to rule by decree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_by_decree) and to change any Roman law as he saw fit [...]. He could introduce new laws into the Roman constitution which did not require ratification by any of the Roman assemblies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_assemblies), [...] An example would be Sulla's introduction of the dreaded proscription (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscription). Likewise, a dictator could act as a supreme judge, with no appeal for his decisions. These judicial powers made the Dictator the supreme authority in both military and civil affairs. [So make that Presidential "kill lists" AND "Executive Orders" ... - OB]

Any magistrate owning imperium was not accountable for his actions as long as he continued to serve in an office that owned imperium. However, once a magistrate left office, he could face trial for his illegal deeds after the imperium had expired. This was not the case with the Dictator. The Dictator was untouchable during his time in office, but was also not liable to be called to account for any of his official acts, illegal or otherwise, after his abdication of office. The dictator's actions were treated as though they never occurred (at least legally).

... plus ça change ...