Tyrant in the White House Bush Crosses the Rubicon 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 grand nephew, 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
agenda 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.
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.
Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has
contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary
of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education
was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and
Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be
reached at: paulcraigroberts@...


---------------------------------
Relax. Yahoo! Mail virus scanning helps detect nasty viruses!

---------------------------------
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS


Visit your group "hiverecords" on the web.

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
hiverecords-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.


---------------------------------





---------------------------------
Brings words and photos together (easily) with
PhotoMail - it's free and works with Yahoo! Mail.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]