An excellent article by Jacob Hornberger, founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. The article defines dictatorship, explains what a democratic dictatorship means, and gives historical precedence for its existence as well as tests for determining whether Bush wields dictatorial power.
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Thursday, August 31, 2006
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3 comments:
The facts are the Exc. Branch is still checked with the ledgative branch. All the words in the world has not changed that yet.
No matter how much everyone wants to scream about this president he isn't doing anything others before him have not done.
Such a sad waste of energy to focus on this with the future in front of your eyes
Did you even read the article? The fact is that this president has assumed dictatorial powers, whether or not any other president has done so. Consider that:
1) This is the first president to use "signing statements" to decide which laws don't apply to him. These statements allow the president to modify legislation without the oversight of the legislative branch of the government. Again, as stated in the article, the fact that the president has not decided to add items to those bills does not negate the fact that he could.
2) This is the first president to have the power to decide whether the legislative branch is authorized to investigate the executive branch. Specifically, he decided that the NSA wiretapping program did not need the oversight of the legislative branch and so denied access to those charged by the legislative branch to investigate.
3) This is the first president to be given carte blanche to decide whether the judicial branch is allowed to rule on the constitutionality of the executive branch's actions (again, see the lawsuits thrown out of court due to the executive's use of the national secrets privilege).
4) This is the first president to declare himself the ultimate arbiter of law for an indeterminate period of time (the war on terrorism has no terms for success or failure or end).
elsimer,
He didn't decide that the NSA program didn't need legislative oversight, they were informed and if they felt it needed investigation that had the power to do it and they didn't. This article and anyone of a dozen others that have been written our slanted and partisan in nature.
It is obvious what side of the aisle your mind resides, so it isn't surprising that you picked up on an article like this.
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