Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: June 06, 2004 – June 12, 2004 Archives:
The bulk of the arguments rest on arguments of ‘necessity’ and the powers of the president as commander-in-chief. They also go into some depth about how people acting at the presidents order could avoid prosecution for demonstrably criminal acts.
The article is well worth reading for this alone.
But that whole discussion is different in kind from one passage in the report. I quote from the piece …
To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a “presidential directive or other writing” that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is “inherent in the president.”
So the right to set aside law is “inherent in the president”. That claim alone should stop everyone in their tracks and prompt a serious consideration of the safety of the American republic under this president. It is the very definition of a constitutional monarchy, let alone a constitutional republic, that the law is superior to the executive, not the other way around. This is the essence of what the rule of law means — a government of laws, not men, and all that.
The fact that our government has invested any time in coming up with a defense of torture is mind-boggling: here’s more on the author of the president’s legal argument.
I can’t quote any of this: it’s all of a piece. I think it’s worth reading but I confess it gave me the creeps.
I read something like that and I start to wonder, what if the president and his minions declared some kind of martial law or suspended the election? Or worse, ignored the result if it didn’t go their way, claiming malfeasance at the state level (Florida is already purging voter records, after all).
My mind is running rampant with this stuff:
* handgun and/or rifle owners are automatically deputized as members of the Homeland Security Militia, with broad powers and decentralized command and control
* A complete catalogue of “attempts dangerous to the State” can never be drawn up because it can never be foreseen what may endanger leadership and people sometime in the future.: hence the militia’s broad powers
* Congress is adjourned and dismissed as “irrelevant and obstructive,” at gunpoint, if need be.
This seems pretty fantastic but when I consider what can be described as mindless obedience to demagogues (“Rush is right.”), demonization of anyone who doesn’t agree (bounties on liberals?[1]), and plenty of examples of mob justice (have I mentioned I moved here from Georgia?), and it makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I see a bloodless transition from the representative democracy/republic we used to know to monarchy, completing the process begun when the Iraq resolution and the PATRIOT act were passed. It would fall to those who wanted to restore constitutional democracy to fight for it, making them responsible for the initiation of violence.
Reading and thinking about this on the heels of the trailer for ‘Fahrenheit 911’ makes my tinfoil beanie vibrate: time to find something else to think about.
fn1. Political Science