Letters to the Editor
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Nothing pisses me off more than...
comments like these:
It's pretty clear what powers the office of the Presidency was granted by the founding fathers; whether or not someone wants to describe those powers as "near dictatorial" is really just a matter of opinion, isn't it?
Opinions can be wrong! You may have a legal right to hold them, but it is absolutely that someone call bullshit, and in full detail about why the are bullshit.
These opinions have effects! Laws have to be interpreted in context. If you start calling the president a dictator, pretty soon the courts will be interpreting the constitution as justifying that, whether or not earlier understanding of the law were similar: see Commerce Clause.
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Bebop-O!
Yes!! That is one of my favorite books! If anyone would wish to find a spiritually guiding text not (directly) tied to any one religion, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is IT. I view it as the literary pivot-point for Western History, a post-Christian expansion journal of one of the best Rulers of the Empire whose Stoic foundations provide the athiest/agnostic with some historical roots and perspective.
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I've always been amazed
that the Interstate Commerce clause apparently applies to intrastate non-commerce.
Conservatives used to gripe about post-modernism and relativism and so forth, and now they've completely incorporated those views into their own rhetoric. It doesn't matter what words say, you can always creatively interpret them to your own personal benefit. The pseudologic supporting the "unitary executive" is on a Derrida-like level of perverted semantics.
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To Clarify
I am neither athiest nor agnostic, but some loose form of Christian, due mostly to my upbringing in this world and the influence of my father, as well as a fantastical affinity for the philosophical framing of the universe provided by the true Christian scholars out there.
That said, I bought MA's Meditations for all of my closest friends- who cross the spectrum from full-on Christian to all-out athiest- after having only read the first chapter and skimmed the rest. It is truly a wonderful distillation of the most ancient human knowledge.
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Constitution's text
One doesn't need to parse the Federalist Papers to know that our constitutional system was never intended to give the President "near dictatorial power" regarding foreign policy and war. It is more than sufficient just to read the Constitution's text. Article I gives explicitly gives Congress authority to declare war, raise and support armies and provide and maintain navies, make rules for the regulation of armed forces, define and punish offenses against international law, and regulate commerce with foreign nations. By contrast, the only foreign affairs powers the Constitution gives to the President are the powers of Commander-in-Chief, receiving Ambassadors, appointing Ambassadors with the consent of the Senate, and making treaties with the concurrent of 2/3 of the Senate.
It is quite obvious that the Constitution does not give the President near dictatorial power over foreign affairs. It gives Congress more extensive power over the formulation of foreign policy than it does to the President. And it hedges the President's limited policy-making authority in foreign affairs, which derives from treaty-making, with a requirement that a supermajority of the Senate concur. It is ironic that conservatives, who say that they yearn for judges who will hew to the Constitution's text, make claims that are wildly inconsistent with even a cursory reading of the text.
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On Marcus Aurelius (sort of)
Might I put in a kind word also for Thucydides, and for an old favorite, M. de Montaigne? One labored heroically over the details of our human distemper, the other betrayed a gentle astonishment, yet kindly eye for our everyday foibles.
Let us not forget old grandpa Freud, either, who dug as mercifully as he could in the ditch of the nineteenth century. A debt is owed to many who came before us, and we repay as best we can.
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Limted Government--CreatingTwo Problems From One Solution
It's worth noting that liberal theorists came up with the idea of "limited government" as opposed to absolute government. It had existed before modern liberalism, of course, most notably in the examples of Greece, Rome, and the Italian Renaissance republics. But Locke's social contract theory provided a thorouhgoing philisophical foundation which accomplished the seemingly contradictory feat of grounding governmental authority in individual liberty--and visa versa.
The rational was simple: in a state of nature, without government, no individual liberties were secure. The foundation of government was the recognition that some liberties were essential--inalienable--while others could reasonably be set aside as a means to an end, so long as the end was secured, and others still could be arrayed in between, and dealt with through political and judicial means.
With this philosophical foundation, the grounds were finally laid on which, eventually, the monarchy itself could be disposed of--which it was, following the American Revolution. And thus we established a limited government with separation of powers placing the primary war powers in legislative hands, giving the President executive powers in war, the same as in domestic matters.
Conservatives, however, didn't like this arrangement when polical results started going against them. First, they worked furiously to redefine "limited government" to mean "government limited to military spending, the FBI, the war on drugs and pork for my district." And now that they've brainwashed away any recollection at all of what "limited government" actually means, they are set on proclaiming that George Bush is king--ruling by divine right, no less, since obviously a majority of people didn't vote for him in 2000. (This isn't snark. I've actually read a Bush supporter arguing this.)
Why do conservatives really hate America?
Like the scorpion in the story in The Crying Game--they can't help themselves. It's just their nature.
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No Kings
GG:
What the actual Americans who founded the country feared (as opposed to "hoped for and craved") was that the President would wield "near dictatorial power." Anyone with doubts should simply read Article II -- defining the powers of the President -- and see how limited those powers are.
I love how you distill a concept down to its bare essence. Pundits: RTFM!
Great post, once again, Glenn.
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jojo++
If you start calling the president a dictator, pretty soon the courts will be interpreting the constitution as justifying that, whether or not earlier understanding of the law were similar: see Commerce Clause.
Oh, bullshit. The courts give as much weight to Michael Goldfarb's scribblings as they do Greenwald's, which is NONE.
Goldfarb: "Bush has near dictatorial power."
Greenwald: "Bush has nowhere near dictatorial power."
Parrots: "Thank God, it's a wash. We were really headed for disaster until Glenn stood up with a retort."
What an asinine view of the world.