Comment Re:So lets see if I have this chain of events righ (Score 1) 135
Without disputing what you say about the Bush administration, I would add that the Constitutional crisis we're facing has existed since 1861, when Lincoln used the same excuse (emergency war powers) based on an equally fraudulent war scenario (the enemy attacked our fort which we maintain on their land, the purpose of which is not to protect them from foreign invasion but to collect excise taxes needed to run the national government and fund the military that will ensure that their State may not peacefully secede, irrespective of the right to secession explicitly stated in the Declaration of Independence and implicitly enshrined in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution) to suspend habeaus corpus, imprison dissenters (including Maryland state legislators and a member of the US Congress) without trial, shut down opposition newspapers who refused to submit to censorship, violate historical principles of the conduct of war by use of slash-and-burn tactics and starvation of the civilian population, and hang after mock trial non-US citizens (Native American chiefs) who happened to side with the Confederacy.
It was Lincoln (the first Republican president, now canonized and worshipped by all statists and both major parties, just as the almost equally tyrannical FDR is today) that used his own war to advance the agenda of empire and unchecked presidential powers, the supremacy of the federal government and the destruction of the principle of State's rights, and set the precedent for the wartime suspension of civil liberties, and excuses for war, of all presidents to follow. Even before Lincoln the Constitution was violated many times, even by Founders who became presidents, SC Justices and Congressmen(e.g. the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Louisiana Purchase, and numerous Supreme Court decisions), but Lincoln drove the first nail in its coffin. George Bush is merely the last in a long line of presidents who swore to uphold it, only to trash it the first time it got in his way.
We should always remember: the Executive, the Congress, and the Judiciary are all agents of the government; they have absolutely no incentive to diminish each other's power, and every incentive under our corrupt system to cooperate with each other, so "checks and balances" be damned. The Courts routinely allow the Executive branch's prosecutors to lie amd withhold evidence in order to obtain convictions; the Congress exempts itself and the other Branches, agencies etc. from most of the laws and and regulations it foists on private business and individuals; the Executive assumes powers not in the Constitution without serious opposition from Congress or the courts; the Congress passes Byzantine laws written by unelected bureaucrats that it doesn't even bother to read, and so on ad nauseum. The vast majority of the so-called Free Press is by and large the mouthpiece and cheerleader for one or another Big Government faction, and since almost every honest business depends to some extent on the sanction of goverment to exist, let alone thrive, the private sector has been emasculated and is no longer a force protecting private property rights.
So I would advise not putting any faith or hope into the Courts, or Congress, or any future president doing much of anything to advance anyone's interest but their own, and their interest is to ensure that Uncle Sugar steals the candy from us babies and hands it out to those who will keep them in power. Pelosi, Clinton, Kennedy, Gore, Rockefeller, Kerry -- meet the new boss, same as the old boss, and get wise.
It was Lincoln (the first Republican president, now canonized and worshipped by all statists and both major parties, just as the almost equally tyrannical FDR is today) that used his own war to advance the agenda of empire and unchecked presidential powers, the supremacy of the federal government and the destruction of the principle of State's rights, and set the precedent for the wartime suspension of civil liberties, and excuses for war, of all presidents to follow. Even before Lincoln the Constitution was violated many times, even by Founders who became presidents, SC Justices and Congressmen(e.g. the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Louisiana Purchase, and numerous Supreme Court decisions), but Lincoln drove the first nail in its coffin. George Bush is merely the last in a long line of presidents who swore to uphold it, only to trash it the first time it got in his way.
We should always remember: the Executive, the Congress, and the Judiciary are all agents of the government; they have absolutely no incentive to diminish each other's power, and every incentive under our corrupt system to cooperate with each other, so "checks and balances" be damned. The Courts routinely allow the Executive branch's prosecutors to lie amd withhold evidence in order to obtain convictions; the Congress exempts itself and the other Branches, agencies etc. from most of the laws and and regulations it foists on private business and individuals; the Executive assumes powers not in the Constitution without serious opposition from Congress or the courts; the Congress passes Byzantine laws written by unelected bureaucrats that it doesn't even bother to read, and so on ad nauseum. The vast majority of the so-called Free Press is by and large the mouthpiece and cheerleader for one or another Big Government faction, and since almost every honest business depends to some extent on the sanction of goverment to exist, let alone thrive, the private sector has been emasculated and is no longer a force protecting private property rights.
So I would advise not putting any faith or hope into the Courts, or Congress, or any future president doing much of anything to advance anyone's interest but their own, and their interest is to ensure that Uncle Sugar steals the candy from us babies and hands it out to those who will keep them in power. Pelosi, Clinton, Kennedy, Gore, Rockefeller, Kerry -- meet the new boss, same as the old boss, and get wise.
