Letters to the Editor
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Great googly moogly
...they sought an energetic executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war.
I am sure I am not the only one who will point this out, but I would like to point Mr Shit-for-brains to Article I of the Constitution:
The Congress shall have Power ...
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
Any asshole who could have a knowledge of that document and still claim that the framers were attempting to grant the executive with "...near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war..." is a complete fucking idiot.
Where do these people post resumes to get jobs for which they are completely unqualified? I want to be CEO of a company and get paid lots of money, if anyone is listening.
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One of the basic problems is...
... that the following is in fact no longer true:
All of this is excruciatingly basic and obvious, really not much beyond what seventh grade civics students are taught about what distinguishes a Republic from a "dictatorship." [emphasis added]
Not to get all culture war, but one of the disturbing trends since, yes, the 60s, has been the de-emphasis on American history and especially American government in our schools. Not all -- perhaps not even many -- schools really engage students with the form of their democracy. Partly it's because conservatives believe government is eeeeviiiilll, so we shouldn't study it. Partly it's because liberals believe that the conduct of our government has been to repress the oppressed, so we should tear it down rather than study it. Mostly it's because any serious engagement will involve controversy and school administrations are notoriously controversy-averse.
But for whatever reasons, we've stopped teaching people about the Republic they inhabit. The past six years has been just a first payment on what's going to come due for that.
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Dictatorship advocates
In line with the recent postings on the American media, it is amazing how the dictatorship advocates are referred to as "experts," "scholars," and "fellows," by that credulous group of sycophants. At the same time, people who have devoted their entire careers to understanding the Muslim world (e.g., Juan Cole) may occasionally get an interview on NPR or something. That, in my view has been a big factor in the astonishing influence of people like Kristol. I guess all Bush needs now is a Praetorian guard.
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These people want a permanent state of martial law if an illegal alien tries to sneak across the border
And isn't it interesting how some of the people who nowadays claim to be defending Western Civilization--using "near-dictatorial" methods--seem to know so little about it?
Goldfarb is trying to equate dictatorial powers during war time with emergency declarations of martial law. A better modern comparison to what Hamilton reffered to would be what we call "martial law". These people want a permanent state of martial law declared if an illegal alien tries to sneak across the border. Can you imagine the absurdity of declaring martial law here because we sent troops to Haiti (to depose a regime and declared martial law there) in the 90s. That's what they want because some Americans might have other ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law#United_States_of_America
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Unbelievable
James Madison is spinning in his grave so fast, he's opened a wormhole to another dimension.
These characters are moral monsters, lacking any capacity for shame. Any sentence fragment from the holy pen of the Founders that supports their worldview is fair game, no matter how disingenuously squeezed and spun. By this logic, I could claim that the Bible mentions child murder, therefore child murder is just fine with the Christian God. It's not so much Orwellian as it is Alice in fucking Wonderland.
I can only assume that the next step is to make up statements whole cloth, put them into the mouths of the Founders, and hope that no one notices.
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Nick: Have Supreme Court rulings changed that balance?
It's certainly good to go to the original document, and to the documents such as the Federalist Papers that surround it. But over the years, how has the Supreme Court interpreted those portions of Articles I and II? Has their refinement of the meanings changed them from what, to us, they appear to be, giving the president more powers and Congress less?
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Mr. Gilroy Touches the Source
"But for whatever reasons, we've stopped teaching people about the Republic they inhabit. The past six years has been just a first payment on what's going to come due for that."
Education in this country, on the majority of the whole, is a JOKE. And not a funny one. This story highlights our situation perfectly- the ability of these warmongers to push their ludicrous interpretations of America comes directly from the fact that America doesn't know any better.
I am annoyed to the point of anger at least several times during each election cycle; each time a candidate lists their priorities, education is thrown in as an afterthought. It is the perpetual 'background issue', the one that every candidate mentions in passing flurries of rhetoric but none make central to their candidacy. It is good that Universal Healthcare has finally become a central issue in the Presidential race- a bittersweet marker of slow progress- but even that should be second to universal access to a grand education. After all, what is good health if you meet a premature death in war? What virtue is in treating illnesses caused by environmental toxins, when a bit of education spread around the nation would foment a demand for the removal of those toxins? The point I am trying to get accross here is that healthcare is temporal; the principles of our democracy must last for much longer.
Education is the medicine for all of our country's problems. Education makes for healthy, responsible citizens; it provides the brainpower and social will to eliminate our dependance on fossil fuels- our security on foreign lands. It boosts our economy and turbocharges progress at every level- and yet it remains underfunded and relegated to the abhorrent policies of No Child Left Behind. Indeed.