The Imperial President’s Toolbox of Terror: A Dictatorship Waiting to Happen [Archive]

AZJoe

10-13-2016, 12:04 AM

The Imperial President’s Toolbox of Terror: A Dictatorship Waiting to Happen
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_imperial_presidents_toolbox_of_terror_a_dictat orship_waiting_to_ha

Executive orders don’t expire at the end of each presidential term. … And every successive occupant of the Oval Office … has expanded the reach and power of the presidency. …

In recent years, however, American presidents have anointed themselves with the power to wage war, unilaterally kill Americans, torture prisoners, strip citizens of their rights, arrest and detain citizens indefinitely, carry out warrantless spying on Americans, and erect their own secretive, shadow government.

These are the powers that will be inherited by the next heir to the throne …
Consider some of the presidential powers—which have been …
· The power to kill. …
· The power to wage war. …
· The power to torture. …
· The power to spy on American citizens. …
· The power to indefinitely detain American citizens. …
· The power to strip American citizens of their constitutional rights. ….
· The power to secretly rewrite or sidestep the laws of the country…
· The power to transform the police into extensions of the military and indirectly institute martial law. …
· The power to command the largest military and intelligence capabilities in the world and, in turn, “wag the dog.” …

“every extraordinary use of power by one President expands the availability of executive branch power for use by future Presidents.” … “The system of checks and balances that the Framers envisioned now lacks effective checks and is no longer in balance,” … Thus far, Congress, with little spine, less integrity and too busy running for re-election, has offered little attempt at oversight, enabling the president to ride roughshod over the Constitution. The media—the perfect accomplice in this stealthy, bloodless coup—continues to inundate us with the latest celebrity scandal, says virtually nothing about these burgeoning powers. All the while, most Americans continue to operate in blissful near-ignorance, unaware or uncaring that the republic is about to fall. …

AZJoe

10-20-2017, 10:11 AM

The greater problem is the dictatorial powers themselves that have been bestowed on the presidency. The greater issue is that no one should wield such power, not simply which popularity contestant gets to wield those powers.
Unfortunately the bulk of the people upset with either Trump or his predecessors, dont' oppose these dictatorial powers, they simply want a different dictator.

James Bovard on the presidential dictatorship (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/10/18/we-wouldnt-freaking-out-dictator-trump-if-we-saw-our-past-tyrants-what-they-were-james-bovard-column/587500001/):
Donald Trump Didn't Create Danger of Presidential Dictatorship, HE INHERITED IT (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/10/18/we-wouldnt-freaking-out-dictator-trump-if-we-saw-our-past-tyrants-what-they-were-james-bovard-column/587500001/)!

Many people are denouncing Donald Trump as a dictator. But the real problem in this nation is the dictatorial illiteracy that has allowed modern presidents to commandeer far too much power. …

Many of the experts who have condemned Trump are also clueless about how far federal control has stretched. … violating the Constitution is practically the job description for modern presidents. It was George W. Bush’s White House, not Trump, that asserted a “commander-in-chief override (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=66011)” entitling presidents to ignore the law and the Bill of Rights. Congress utterly failed to thwart that outrageous claim.

Presidents have amassed vast authority because they are judged on their rhetoric and purported goals, not on their constitutional fidelity. … Barack Obama’s drone assassinations (https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0517/Assassination-nation-Are-there-any-limits-on-President-Obama-s-license-to-kill) of U.S. citizens were non-issues because observers think he “meant well.” When Obama decided to bomb Libya (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/clinton-to-congress-obama-would-ignore-your-war-resolutions) in 2011, his appointees made it clear that he'd ignore the War Powers Act of 1973, … When a federal judge ruled in May 2016 that the Obama administration’s consumer subsidies under the Affordable Care Act violated the Constitution (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obamacare-court-ruling-20160512-snap-story.html), the decision was almost completely ignored …

the response to Trump is akin to a novice cable weather reporter who treats each morning’s sunrise as a shocking development. …

Trump is being denounced as a dictator for rescinding Obama’s executive decrees. Nothing frightens some Trump opponents more than his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. … But Obama chose not to submit that agreement for ratification to the Senate (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/29/obama-will-bypass-senate-ratify-paris-climate-acco/). … Obama relied on “bureaucratic bulldozing (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/us/politics/obama-era-legacy-regulation.html?mcubz=0&_r=0) rather than legislative transparency,” …

Many Trump opponents are not opposed to dictators per se; they simply want different dictates. Trump was widely denounced because his Justice Department refuses to compel every public school in the nation to make special bathroom and locker room accommodations for self-proclaimed transgender kids. But the Constitution did not grant the federal government jurisdiction over gender identity. …

None of Trump’s actions yet rivals the odiousness of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which retroactively legalized torture and gutted habeas corpus. There was little uproar at the time … Whitewashing torture was of no more significance than Congress creating a wool subsidy.

People who are clueless about past oppression are unlikely to effectively resist new abuses. If people never perceived or complained about the power grabs of the prior three presidents, they have scant standing to bewail Trump. This is especially true of top officials in previous administrations who set perilous precedents that Trump could exploit. …

The sheer amount of punitive power possessed by the federal government is one of the best gauges of potential tyranny. Do we really need 4,000 federal criminal laws (https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/30/cyberbullying-and-a-students-suicide/new-criminal-laws-arent-the-answer-to-bullying) and 300,000 regulations (http://www.heritage.org/report/revisiting-the-explosive-growth-federal-crimes) with criminal penalties to punish wayward citizens?

As Benjamin Constant wrote in 1815, “It is in fact the degree of force (https://books.google.com/books?id=wW9vx_fjZ3IC&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=BENJAMIN+CONSTANT+degree+of+force,+not+its+hold ers,+which+#v=onepage&q=BENJAMIN%20CONSTANT%20degree%20of%20force%2C%20n ot%20its%20holders%2C%20which&f=false), not its holders, which must be denounced. ... There are weights too heavy for the hand of man.”

Unfortunately, many Trump opponents will never make an adverse inference against arbitrary power because they seek to put government itself back on a pedestal. …

But America will not be great again until people expect and tolerate far less from presidents. And only illiterates believe that toppling Trump is the only “dictator insurance” that America needs.