A New "King George"
from CBS News
(The Nation) This column was written by Robert Scheer.
George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the "foreign entanglements" that George Washington feared would destroy the experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
With the "war on terror," Bush has asserted the right of the president to wage war anywhere and for any length of time, at his whim, because the "terrorists" will always provide a convenient shadowy target. Just the "continual warfare" that Madison warned of in justifying the primary role of Congress in initiating and continuing to finance a war — the very issue now at stake in Bush's battle with Congress.
In his Political Observations, written years before he served as fourth president of the United States, Madison went on to underscore the dangers of an imperial presidency bloated by war fever. "In war," Madison wrote in 1795, at a time when the young republic still faced its share of dangerous enemies, "the discretionary power of the Executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force, of the people."
How remarkably prescient of Madison to anticipate the specter of our current King George imperiously undermining Congress' attempts to end the Iraq war. When the prime author of the U.S. Constitution explained why that document grants Congress — not the president — the exclusive power to declare and fund wars, Madison wrote, "A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments."
Because "[n]o nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare," Madison urged that the constitutional separation of powers he had codified be respected. "The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war...the power of raising armies," he wrote. "The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them."
(Continued here.)
(The Nation) This column was written by Robert Scheer.
George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the "foreign entanglements" that George Washington feared would destroy the experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
With the "war on terror," Bush has asserted the right of the president to wage war anywhere and for any length of time, at his whim, because the "terrorists" will always provide a convenient shadowy target. Just the "continual warfare" that Madison warned of in justifying the primary role of Congress in initiating and continuing to finance a war — the very issue now at stake in Bush's battle with Congress.
In his Political Observations, written years before he served as fourth president of the United States, Madison went on to underscore the dangers of an imperial presidency bloated by war fever. "In war," Madison wrote in 1795, at a time when the young republic still faced its share of dangerous enemies, "the discretionary power of the Executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force, of the people."
How remarkably prescient of Madison to anticipate the specter of our current King George imperiously undermining Congress' attempts to end the Iraq war. When the prime author of the U.S. Constitution explained why that document grants Congress — not the president — the exclusive power to declare and fund wars, Madison wrote, "A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments."
Because "[n]o nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare," Madison urged that the constitutional separation of powers he had codified be respected. "The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war...the power of raising armies," he wrote. "The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them."
(Continued here.)
Powered by Blogger
1 Comments:
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Congress authorize the president to go to war in 'the war on terror'? By doing so, didn't congress abrogate their authority to call for war and give that authority to the president? It is theirs to withdraw at their convenience. In their wisdom, giving the president the authority to wage the war on terror as he sees fit, eschews their responsibility for it. Ergo, their re-elective chances do not hinge on how the war is going - it's Bush's fault if things go wrong and if they do right, well, they get to bask in the glory of authorizing the war in the first place.
However, the piece misplaces the judgement about 'King George'. There is no evidence that Bush lied. In order to lie, you have to know the truth and not act on it. In 2002, the truth was that WMDs were in Iraq and many intelligence reports from both American and foreign agencies verified this. Even the Clinton adminstration said there were WMDs in Iraq as late as 1999, if memory serves me correct. Bush, nor anyone else, knew otherwise, so he could not have lied. Despite the fact that WMDs were not found it not evidence of lying. It is either poor intelligence that they were never there in the first place or they were there and moved before the invasion.
As for the flowering history lesson about the founding fathers, I fear a government that wants to protect me from myself and have aggressive government in my life from cradle to grave such as the Democrat-controlled Minnesota Legislature than I do how my federal government treats people who have one thing on their mind - to kill me and as many of my fellow citizens as possible. I do not see that my civil rights are being suspended by King George. But, I see all sorts of examples by the Minnesota Democrats who spit in the face of private property rights that Madison said was the hallmark of freedom in The Federalist Papers.
Post a Comment
<< Home