Really, anyone who has been in, or knows someone in, the military would realize how farfetched this is.
The military, while chided by alot of civilians, take their job of upholding the Constitution and the “American Life” very, very, serious. At the first mention to a ranking General of “Arrest Congress” the president and his cronies would be very quickly brought back to reality.
For a sceniro like this it would have to be in very small, incremental steps, a change here, a change there and maybe in a few decades a president might (small might) be in a position to pull off something like this. Any grand gesture to try it all at once would be put down fast, very, very, fast.
On November 8th of this year, America awakes to find that the Democrats’ surge to power has been negated. In all states where Electronic voting machines operate, Republicans not only withstood the Democratic party’s charge, but increased their numbers in both houses.
The outraged citizenry goes into the cities’ streets, in protests ranging from orderly to full-fledged riots. And with that, Bush brings down the hammer: He declares Martial Law throughout the country.
Instead of formally suspending the Constitution, Bush simply invokes Public Law 109-364,
**…or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007” (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a “public emergency” and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.”
President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is “martial law.”**
IUn this scenario, the pubbies keep their jobs in the House and Senate, but, of course, only as long as Bush (and his successors) keeps his. And that would be only until the insurrection has been quelled. Which will be very soon. Of course.
How does the year 2030 sound to you?
Or how about never? Is never okay by you?
Read the while thing about the new law and its implications at
Thing is, if we imagine a scenario where Bush makes himself dictator he’s surely not going to go on TV and wipe his ass with the Constitution, outlaw democracy and have congress arrested. That would be stupid. Doesn’t he want his dictatorship to succeed?
If America ever becomes a dictatorship that dictator will proclaim his love and reverence for the Constitution, mom, apple pie, and democracy. So we’ll still have a Congress…composed entirely of the dictator’s cronies, ready to rubber-stamp anything he asks for. Those representatives and senators will still run for re-election, it’s just that any serious opponents will get a visit from some guys, and they’ll decide they need to spend more time with their families. We’ll still have freedom of speech…but not HATE SPEECH! Hate speech isn’t protected by our sacred constitution! We’ll have freedom of religion, but dangerous cults aren’t religions. You’ll still have private property and free enterprise, as long as you were socially responsible, for example American workers would now be protected from unfair competition by dirty foreigners. And so on.
Bush can no more declare himself dictator than I can. How do you people imagine countries become dictatorships? Dictators need the approval and accquiescence of the people. A dictator tailors his appeal to the country he lives in. Yeah, in the 1930s there were a lot of dictators who were openly scornful of Democracy…but they lived in countries with no tradition of Democracy, where democracy was a foreign ideology that had failed.
And of course, contempt for the masses is a typical attitude of totalitarians, these discussions wouldn’t be complete without people chiming in about how the average person would barely look up from their TV set when dictatorship is declared. And that sort of attitude brings dictatorship one tiny step closer to reality.
No, but we did go to war without debate. IIRC, only one member Congress voted against it, and she recieved death threats as a result. Now, I’m not saying that the war against Afghanistan was wrong. I’m just saying that we moved awfully fast with very little discussion of the ramifications.
The kind of terrorist attack I’m talking about would have to be massive and occur in several different locations to give the American people the feeling that “nowhere is safe.” (We sort of had that after September 11th. My little community in Bumfuck, Nowhere started worrying about if we were prepared for a terrorist attack, and the local government spent thousands of dollars training local state employees how to deal with things like bioterror.)
No need. That’s where Orwell was wrong. “Big Brother” would have no need to shut down the media because very few people pay attention anyway.
Do you now?
Never said he did, now did I? The only thing I said in specific about the Bush administration was that they have a history of ignoring protestors.
I don’t think the majority would support it. I think the majority wouldn’t care. As long as they, themselves, felt no threat from it and there was little to no change in their daily lives, it simply wouldn’t matter all that much. They might complain about it, but probably wouldn’t* do *anything about it.
It’s a lot like the current controversy over torture. From casual inquiries, I’ve found that a lot of people don’t care much one way or the other because it’s just “terrorists” who are supposedly being tortured. Now, to me, the idea that prisoners might be tortured by our government is utterly horrifying and goes against everything I thought this country stood for. But what am I doing about it? Nothing but bitching on a message board and writing the occasional letter to my elected representatives.
Maybe it’s the cynic in me, but I don’t think that the avgerage American is all that dedicated to constitutional principals, anyway. We may say that we are, but our actions say something different. Over the course of our history, it’s been adequately demonstrated that we’re quite content with taking rights away from groups which are unpopular at the time, or when our emotions are running high. (Witness the horrible things that some posters on this board have said should be done to child molestors.)
Well, context is everything. Working only with the original post:
If a car bomb blew up near the current Prez, I dont think he could declare the Constitution “null and void” (is that the same as declaring martial law?) until the WoT is won. The US Congress and the average voter would see that as overreacting, IMO. And I am not sure about the legality of the Constitution being declared void by only one branch of the Government…
As someone else pointed out, the US Constitution was not suspended, as in “totally”, during the US Civil War. Just a few bits and pieces of it. For example, elections were not suspended.
If Congress responds with “Request Denied”, what can President Bush do? Order the military to seize the capital? Assuming that there is no one with any sanity in the White House, or the Pentagon, and the military blocks the Congress from entering the Capital Building and conducting buisness, then what?
At least half of the country is not gonna like it. Granted, many will be waiting for someone else to “fix” the coup problem, but the economy is gonna tank, and the newly minted President-for-life will have inherited many new headaches.
I would be more worried about the “Death of a Thousand Ducks”, as pointed out above.
Depending on your point of view, the Federal Government has been growing in size and power (authority and getting the voter to be more dependent on it) since the US Civil War.
It’s not yet close to being ready for that leap to a Constitutional Dictatorship (similar to how Mussolini and Hitler took power). That requires a passive consent of many “groups”. You need to get the Congress onboard, 80% of the voters, and big buisness, including mass media.
The current US President does not have anywhere near that support. IMO.
Can you identify what specific section(s) of the actual text of Public Law 109-364 has these “public disorder” measures? A search of the bill as it was passed by House and Senate for the word “disorder” only reveals Sec. 741. Pilot projects on early diagnosis and treatment of post traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions. I can’t find anything on “public disorder” and the President declaring a “public emergency.” Where, by section and paragraph number, are these provisions of the law?
On November 8th of this year, America awakes to find that the Democrats’ surge to power has been negated. In all states where Electronic voting machines operate, Republicans not only withstood the Democratic party’s charge, but increased their numbers in both houses.
The outraged citizenry goes into the cities’ streets, in protests ranging from orderly to full-fledged riots. And with that, Bush brings down the hammer: He declares Martial Law throughout the country.
Instead of formally suspending the Constitution, Bush simply invokes Public Law 109-364,
…or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007” (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a “public emergency” and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.”
President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is “martial law.”
IUn this scenario, the pubbies keep their jobs in the House and Senate, but, of course, only as long as Bush (and his successors) keeps his. And that would be only until the insurrection has been quelled. Which will be very soon. Of course.
How does the year 2030 sound to you?
Or how about never? Is never okay by you?
Read the while thing about the new law and its implications at
On the practical side, the US military, including the Reserves and the ATF, is not large enough to patrol and control the USA like the classic “1984” or “Animal Farm” type of dictatorship will call for without a reinstatement of the draft.
If the draft was called up, how many folks do you think will respond? I assume a rather small percentage, especially if their is a controversy behind the reasoning (like widespread allegations of voter fraud).
“Bush steals the vote/creates scapegoat enemy to become Ceaser for Life!” scenerios look good as a screenplay, but umm… respectfully, they seem like Sci-fi to me.
I did, and found nothing of what Bushwatch was talking about. But I really didnt need that nice link to know it was crap. Just read that site! Hell, I hate GWB and cant wait till he is out of office, but that site? Geezee…
I’m cynical enough to believe that just about any government/presidential position, no matter how outrageous, can be wrapped up with sufficient emotion-invoking language to garner support from a nonzero percentage of the populace. President Hillary could push for a tripling of the income tax rate to fund a nationwide universal health care scheme and attract supporters just by claiming it’s “for the good of the children.” Since the OP was referring specifically to this Administration, I simply chose a different set of propaganda buzzwords accordingly.
We also declared war on Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. If there was grounds for debate, Congress would have debated. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it was very clear that we were now in a military situation. There was no debate that Japan attacked us, and there was virtually no debate that a military response was necessary.
However, FWIW we didn’t invade Afghanistan on September 12th. And I’m guessing you have a faulty memory because we did have a lengthy process in which our elected representatives laid out the case for the Taliban supporting al-Qaeda. The reason there wasn’t much of a “two way” debate is because both sides overwhelmingly agreed on the facts of the matter that had been reported.
The fact that the overwhelming majority agreed isn’t sign that there’s no basis for debate in this country. There was tons of debate about invading Iraq, tons where were you? The fact of the matter is there wasn’t that level of debate concerning Afghanistan because virtually every single elected official agreed. And really, how unreasonable was that agreement? About as reasonable as the agreement that we had to declare war on Japan.
To assume that just because Congress can unanimously agree on one thing you can’t leap to the conclusion that they’ll unanimously agree to something else in response. Congress disagreed with FDR on several matters throughout his Presidency, just because they overwhelmingly agreed to declare war on Japan was not a sign that they were ready to sign over the Constitution to the personal review of King Roosevelt, no, they were willing to agree overwhelmingly in one particular case because it was a particular issue in which the decision was clear, the facts at hand were clear.
To assume a similar situation would exist with regards to suspending the Constitution is totally without grounding in reality or any basis in anything I’ve ever seen.
Furthermore, the Constitution is not a compact between the President and the Congress, it is a compact between the States, and the President and the Congress do not have power to “suspend” it in any case. 3/4ths of the states would have to agree to make it legal.
This is why the majority of people aren’t elected representatives. Believe it or not the overwhelming majority of elected representatives, from Congressmen to State governors aren’t the “disinterested public.” They’re so in interested they’ve actually become part of the political process themselves.
This is sort of why the responsibility for governing is delegated and not exercised directly by the people. And I’ve seen no evidence that can reasonably suggest anywhere near >50% of the 537 elected federal representatives would go along with this. Not to mention the SCOTUS, the military, and the fifty state governments.
I’m not sure how you can equate “disagreement over valid interrogation techniques” with “suspension of the entire U.S. Constitution.” The two are substantially different both in the minds of the entire American people and the entire body of elected representatives. Intelligence officials have long used extraordinary interrogation techniques, I think most Americans are aware of that.
This is why the average American doesn’t run the government. The Constitution and our government was designed very deliberately, and quite well I may add.
On a related note; if Congress isn’t in session during Bush’s “I’m suspending the constitution”[ press conference can it come back into session sooner than the date it set for adjournment without Bush’s approval?
Yep. And while it’s true that the AUMF was passed on 9/14/01, it didn’t specify Afghanistan. The decision to go into that country was made only after a determination that al Qaeda was responsible and that that organizstion was holed up there.
When a man in his position makes “so long as I’m the dictator jokes,” and then repeatedly acts as if he were above the law and the Constitution, and then incredibly actually defends his actions with that “unitary executive” theory, you can’t be surprised if some people start speculating along those lines.
