[Mb-civic] WHATTA WE GOT ? WHATTA WE GOT?

[Peter Fleming]

I send this to my Free Press readers

                                 Al Pacino surveys the killing crime scene
in the beginning of Michael Mann's classic film, "HEAT",
                                     shouting to his investigating
lieutenants, "Whatta we got? Whatta we got?"

            WHAT WE'VE GOT is a bunch of scared, highly paid boobs posing as
media reporters and journalists not giving us vital information.....
                          information most people know nothing about because
it doesn't reach their narrow, NY Times media access.    
                                     Without wide open free media speech
describing all the criminalities against ALL the people, 
                                    we now have learned to scour the
internet for articles like this one by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS.   

                                           It's time for all good people to
understand the increasing erosions of  liberty for a few moments, 
                                                        come out of "hiding
heads in the sand" even if only for a painful few moments.

                                                             Best wishes,
Peter

Bush Has Crossed the Rubicon
by Paul Craig Roberts <mailto:paulcraigroberts at yahoo.com> 
by Paul Craig Roberts 

Dictatorships seldom appear full-fledged but emerge piecemeal. When Julius
Caesar crossed the Rubicon with one Roman legion he broke the tradition that
protected the civilian government from victorious generals and launched the
transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Fearing that
Caesar would become a king, the Senate assassinated him. From the civil wars
that followed, Caesar's grandnephew, Octavian, emerged as the first Roman
emperor, Caesar Augustus.
Two thousand years later in Germany, Adolf Hitler's rise to dictator from
his appointment as chancellor was rapid. Hitler used the Reichstag fire to
create an atmosphere of crisis. Both the judicial and legislative branches
of government collapsed, and Hitler's decrees became law. The Decree for the
Protection of People and State (Feb. 28, 1933) suspended guarantees of
personal liberty and permitted arrest and incarceration without trial. The
Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) transferred legislative power to Hitler,
permitting him to decree laws, laws moreover that "may deviate from the
Constitution."
The dictatorship of the Roman emperors was not based on an ideology. The
Nazis had an ideology of sorts, but Hitler's dictatorship was largely
personal and agenda-based. The dictatorship that emerged from the Bolshevik
Revolution was based in ideology. Lenin declared that the Communist Party's
dictatorship over the Russian people rests "directly on force, not limited
by anything, not restricted by any laws, nor any absolute rules." Stalin's
dictatorship over the Communist Party was based on coercion alone,
unrestrained by any limitations or inhibitions. 
In this first decade of the 21st century the United States regards itself as
a land of democracy and civil liberty but, in fact, is an incipient
dictatorship. Ideology plays only a limited role in the emerging
dictatorship. The demise of American democracy is largely the result of
historical developments.
Lincoln was the first American tyrant. Lincoln justified his tyranny in the
name of preserving the Union. His extra-legal, extra-constitutional methods
were tolerated in order to suppress Northern opposition to Lincoln's war
against the Southern secession. 
The first major lasting assault on the US Constitution's separation of
powers, which is the basis for our political system, came with the response
of the Roosevelt administration to the crisis of the Great Depression. The
New Deal resulted in Congress delegating its legislative powers to the
executive branch. Today when Congress passes a statute it is little more
than an authorization for an executive agency to make the law by writing the
regulations that implement it. 
Prior to the New Deal, legislation was tightly written to minimize any
executive branch interpretation. Only in this way can law be accountable to
the people. If the executive branch that enforces the law also writes the
law, "all legislative powers" are no longer vested in elected
representatives in Congress. The Constitution is violated, and the
separation of powers is breached. 
The principle that power delegated to Congress by the people cannot be
delegated by Congress to the executive branch is the mainstay of our
political system. Until President Roosevelt overturned this principle by
threatening to pack the Supreme Court, the executive branch had no role in
interpreting the law. As Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote: "That congress
cannot delegate legislative power to the president is a principle
universally recognized as vital to the integrity and maintenance of the
system of government ordained by the Constitution."
Despite seven decades of an imperial presidency that has risen from the New
Deal's breach of the separation of powers, Republican attorneys, who
constitute the membership of the quarter-century-old Federalist Society, the
candidate group for Republican nominees to federal judgeships, write tracts
about the Imperial Congress and the Imperial Judiciary that are briefs for
concentrating more power in the executive. Federalist Society members
pretend that Congress and the Judiciary have stolen all the power and run
away with it.
The Republican interest in strengthening executive power has its origin in
frustration from the constraints placed on Republican administrations by
Democratic congresses. The thrust to enlarge the President's powers predates
the Bush administration but is being furthered to a dangerous extent during
Bush's second term. The confirmation of Bush's nominee, Samuel Alito, a
member of the Federalist Society, to the Supreme Court will provide five
votes in favor of enlarged presidential powers. 
President Bush has used "signing statements" hundreds of times to vitiate
the meaning of statutes passed by Congress. In effect, Bush is vetoing the
bills he signs into law by asserting unilateral authority as
commander-in-chief to bypass or set aside the laws he signs. For example,
Bush has asserted that he has the power to ignore the McCain amendment
against torture, to ignore the law that requires a warrant to spy on
Americans, to ignore the prohibition against indefinite detention without
charges or trial, and to ignore the Geneva Conventions to which the US is
signatory. 
In effect, Bush is asserting the powers that accrued to Hitler in 1933. His
Federalist Society apologists and Department of Justice appointees claim
that President Bush has the same power to interpret the Constitution as the
Supreme Court. An Alito Court is likely to agree with this false claim.
This is the great issue that is before the country. But it is pushed into
the background by political battles over abortion and homosexual rights.
Many people fighting to strengthen the executive think they are fighting
against legitimizing sodomy and murder in the womb. They are unaware that
the real issue is that America is on the verge of elevating its president
above the law.
Bush Justice Department official and Berkeley law professor John Yoo argues
that no law can restrict the president in his role as commander-in-chief.
Thus, once the president is at war - even a vague open-ended "war on terror"
- Bush's Justice Department says the president is free to undertake any
action in pursuit of war, including the torture of children and indefinite
detention of American citizens. 
The commander-in-chief role is probably sufficiently elastic to expand to
any crisis, whether real or fabricated. Thus has the US arrived at the verge
of dictatorship.
 <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076152553X/lewrockwell/>
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076152553X/lewrockwell/> This
development has little to do with Bush, who is unlikely to be aware that the
Constitution is experiencing its final rending on his watch. America's
descent into dictatorship is the result of historical developments and of
old political battles dating back to President Nixon being driven from
office by a Democratic Congress. 
 There is today no constitutional party. Both political parties, most
constitutional lawyers, and the bar associations are willing to set aside
the Constitution whenever it interferes with their agendas. Americans have
forgotten the prerequisites for freedom, and those pursuing power have
forgotten what it means when it falls into other hands. Americans are very
close to losing their constitutional system and civil liberties. It is
paradoxical that American democracy is the likely casualty of a "war on
terror" that is being justified in the name of the expansion of democracy.
January 16, 2006
Dr. Roberts [send him mail <mailto:paulcraigroberts at yahoo.com> ] is John M.
Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at
the Independent Institute <http://www.independent.org> . He is a former
associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for
National Review, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He
is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076152553X/lewrockwell/> . 
Copyright (c) 2006 Creators Syndicate
Paul Craig Roberts Archives
<http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts-arch.html>  	
 
Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page <http://www.lewrockwell.com> 

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