This is actually a question but I’m posting it in Great Debates because of the direction it’s likely to take. In this post in a thread about gun control, Susanann stated the following:
I was really struck by the last sentence. Was this really a common thing to discuss? If so, is it a general phenomenon or was it just Clinton? Do they discuss the same issue in regards to Bush? If not, was it just Clinton or have there been other presidents that engendered this kind of paranoia? Is it a Democrat versus Republican thing?
Not even Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War suspended elections, and he sure as hell suspended other civil rights. So I don’t think its really something to worry about.
I was in the military during most of Clinton’s presidency and I never heard any speculation like that. Sounds like someone in dire need of a tin foil hat to me.
Just to be clear: I wasn’t asking if it was likely that Clinton would have done this. I agree that the idea is ludicrous. I was asking if this was really a common fear amongst the military.
While I get the impression that a lot of soldiers didn’t particularly like Clinton, I’m pretty good friends with some military people, and none of them ever expressed to me the fear that he would suspend elections and declare himself dictator.
I never heard any military types discussing the possibility that Clinton would assume dictatorial powers. If any DID discuss such a thing, it just proves there are paranoid fruitcakes everywhere, inclusing our armed forces.
Oh, nonsense. A whole lot of military men were, how can we put thsi gently… skeptical about the CinC (sometimes unbecomingly so), but I never heard of that. I’ll second the “consider the source” comment.
Oh, nonsense. A whole lot of military men were, how can we put thsi gently… skeptical about the CinC (sometimes unbecomingly so), but I never heard of that. I’ll second the “consider the source” comment.
Everyone’s pretty much confirmed what I thought. I guess this should have gone in General Questions since there doesn’t seem to be any debate. I couldn’t imagine that it could be true but the statement was made and no one seemed to be questioning it so I thought that someone should.
Didn’t Al Gore and the Democrats try to disenfranchise the vote of veterans overseas during the 2000 elections? Yes or no. I distinctly remember the Democrats trying to block the overseas servicemember vote during the Florida fiasco.
Oh, by the way, being a veteran myself, and still working daily around Marines, I can tell you that they had nothing but hatred for Clinton.
There was an incident where some absentee ballots in counties with Republican majorities were accepted as legal despite the fact that they had problems, such as incorrect date stamping, in which case the law clearly stated that such ballots can’t be accepted. The Gore campaign attempted a legal maneuver to have the legal standards applied to absentee ballots in all counties, but as I recall, a judge threw it out.