A few hours later I listened to two young people who work in the film industry talk about how they fully expected this election to be stolen.
A couple of liberal kids in college worry that the election will be stolen. Great. That’s a great barometer of the country at large. And where do they get this from? They get it from the Demoratic" spin machine that continues to claim the the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen. And the proof of that. Nothing. The USAToday and the Washington post counted and recounted the Florida elections results every which way they could. And what did they find? That Bush won no matter how one sliced it. Of course the story was buried on page 3, so it was hard to find. But if these two (liberal) papers couldn’t prove the election was stolen, it wasn’t.
But when you talk to a range of everyday people, it’s the forest they’re concerned about: Will our system of constitutional democracy survive? And for many, this election is a crucial, desperate test. Because the evidence is that this administration and its allies will do anything—anything—to stay in power.
What proof do you have of this? They can’t stay in power and they know they can’t. There is no “subversion of the Constitution.” They are doing what any American political party in power tries to do. It tries to stay in power. The Dems do it to.
Can you remember a time when people were so terrified (not an overstatement) about the future of the republic? Everywhere they look they see collapse. The legitimacy of the entire infrastructure—Congress, the presidency, the news media, the electoral process—is in question.
Do you really believe this nonsense? Congress is in session. No Soliders in the streets. The Newspapers report what they want. You have free and clear access to newspapers, the internet, libraries, TV, radio. What, exactly has collapsed? Please tell me. Local government? No. State or county government? No. The courts? No. The police? No. The federal government? No. Has anyone really questioned the legitimacy of the government, or the courts?
We can all surf the net and find some nutcase with a key board exposing something gibberish. Honestly, this web sit of yours is almost as frightening as the one referenced above.
Not that I think either election was “stolen”, but the ironicalistic* fact is that if the count had proceeded the way Gore wanted it (only a few counties), Bush would’ve won and if it had proceded the way Bush wanted it (the whole state), Gore would’ve won. So, no, Bush didn’t win no matter which way you slided it.
*I know it’s not a word, but I love that SNL imitation of Bush.
I did not cite that article to prove the Republic actually is in danger of becoming a dictatorship, but to point out to Clothahump why he should not be surprised so many highly intelligent people are actually worried about that.
That site is simply the online version of In These Times, an eminently respectable left-wing magazine to which you really should subscribe.
Fear not, Tuckerfan. As the board’s resident super-villain I have long since taken measures against just such an eventuality, as it would interfere with my long-range plans for conquest of the Earth. Unfortunately the implementation of this plan will require the deaths of all youse guys 'cept Anaamika (cause I love you so much), gigi (cause I owe her a favor), Carlyjay ('cause she’s so hot) and one other whose name I shall not divulge. But you can’t make omelets without breaking eggs.
And that is a very telling sentence. The liberal news media spins everything goddamn thing it can to make Bush look like Teh Ant1Kr1st. Straight out of the Goebbels handbook: yell a lie long enough and loud enough and eventually people will start to believe it.
Indeed. And many who took that same oath feel the same. I despise Bush now. But as of today, he has not declared himself, nor acted defacto as an enemy of the Constitution. Acting to preserve his own status beyond the scope of his legal term of office would be a defacto attack upon it.
I will not speculate on the exact nature of my response. It would have to be covert, and violence would be a very unlikely means of gaining my objective, which would be the restoration of legally constituted government. But my ethics would not require me to eschew any thought of violence against him, or his associates were there reasonable evidence that he was acting outside his legal powers. It just would not be practical for one old fart to go on the war path one on one with the Rogue Executive.
Hey, that was libertarian genocide, not authoritarian genocide.
Which goes to show, you don’t need to be a fascist to be a racist murderous punk.
But much of the modern active-service military is anti-racist & moderate-left. The right-wing loonies, like the left-wing loonies, tend to look for clubs or gangs outside of the legitimate military.
I’m pretty sure Iceland & various indigenous nations have it beat for the title. And the USA today is not much more democratic than the UK was even during the War for Independence. Now, oldest unquestionably sovereign “Republic,” maybe so.
So, the US has a hereditary monarch as executive, half of its legislature is made up of people born into the role, and the other half is beholden only to white landowners?
I also hope you’re aware, Clotha, that magazines like In These Times and Air America Radio pretty much are the “liberal media,” and that CNN and NBC and so on are not.
I know you’re a lawyer and one of the few here who explains a lot of these matters for us, but I cannot see why the newer law makes it substantially tougher for Bush to declare martial law than the older one did.
The added conditions might increase the Degree of Difficulty from 0.2 to 0.4 but it’s still a walk in the park for Bush to get his way here. In both the old and new law, he seems to be the only arbiter, the only decider, who interprets the law and and invokes it. There seems to be no checks or balances.
If he specifically asked for this new wording, I strongly suspect we might be missing something that is strongly in Bush’s favor.
I’m not being snarky in the least, so if I am wrong, please enlighten me.
Granting and addressing the hypothetical situation as layed out by the OP, I would ask ye noble Dopers another questions: if bush really pissed on the Constitution and had military/popular support, would there be any State governments that seceded in reaction?
Would they be right to? Would you support the secession in your state if Bush, or any part of the Fed were to “suspend” the Constitution indefinitely?
