At the root of the chaos in the Middle East and here at home are governments that respect no limits on their exercise of power. Public officials — who are supposed to be our public servants — routinely behave as if they are our masters. They reject the confines of the Constitution, they don’t believe that our rights are inalienable, and they fail to see the dangerous path down which they are leading us.
It is a path to an authoritarian America, predicted by the British writer George Orwell in his dark and terrifying novel “1984,” in which governmental power was fortified by fear at home and war abroad.
Forty years ago many Americans celebrated the demise of the imperial presidency with the resignation of Richard Nixon. Today it is clear they celebrated too soon. Nixon’s view of presidential powers, summed up in his infamous statement that, “when the president does it that means it is not illegal,” is embraced by the majority of the political class. In fact, the last two presidents have abused their power in ways that would have made Nixon blush.
For example, Nixon’s abuse of the Internal Revenue Service to persecute his political opponents was the subject of one of the articles of impeachment passed by the US House of Representatives. As bad as Nixon’s abuse of the IRS was, he was hardly the first president to use the IRS this way, and the present administration seems to be continuing this tradition. The targeting of Tea Party groups has received the most attention, but it is not the only instance of the IRS harassing President Barack Obama’s political opponents. For example, the IRS has demanded that one of my organizations, Campaign for Liberty, hand over information regarding its major donors.
Nixon’s abuse of federal power to spy on his “enemies” was abhorrent, but Nixon’s abuses of civil liberties pale in comparison to those of his successors. Today literally anyone in the world can be spied on, indefinitely detained, or placed on a presidential “kill list” based on nothing more than a presidential order. For all his faults, Nixon never tried to claim the power to unilaterally order anyone in the world detained or killed.
American Kings!
Many today act as apologists for the imperial presidency. One reason for this is that many politicians place partisan concerns above loyalty to the Constitution. Thus, they openly defend, and even celebrate, executive branch power grabs when made by a president of their own party.
Another reason is the bipartisan consensus in support of the warfare state. Many politicians and intellectuals in both parties support an imperial presidency because they recognize that the Founders’ vision of a limited executive branch is incompatible with an aggressive foreign policy. When Republicans are in power “neoconservatives” take the lead, while when Democrats are in power “humanitarian interventionists" take the lead. Regardless of party or ideological label, they share the same goal — to protect the executive branch from being constrained by the constitutional requirement that the president seek congressional approval before waging war.
The strength of the bipartisan consensus that the president should have limitless discretion in committing troops to war is illustrated by the failure of an attempt to add an article dealing with Nixon's “secret bombing” of Cambodia to the articles of impeachment. Even at the low point of support for the imperial presidency, Congress still refused to rein in the president’s war-making powers.
The failure to include the Cambodia invasion in the articles of impeachment may well be the main reason Watergate had little to do with reining in the imperial presidency. Because the imperial presidency is rooted in the war power, attempts to rein in the imperial presidency that do not work to restore Congress’ constitutional authority to declare war are doomed to fail.
American Kings!
Repealing Nixon’s legacy requires building a new bipartisan coalition in favor of peace and civil liberties, rejecting what writer Gene Healy calls “the cult of the presidency,” and placing loyalty to the Constitution above partisanship. An important step must be restoring congressional supremacy in matters of war and peace.
The Legislative-Executive-Judicial Cabal with our Marxist Dictator leading the Cabal
Obama loves America to death.
"Extortion and thuggery are good things when they're called law!"
Below is one of many tyrannical crimes of the Monster created since the Civil War !
Becky Gerritson: "...government is out of control!" and "...our representative government has failed us."
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the IRS to detail under oath how some of former agency official Lois Lerner’s emails went missing, as well as any potential methods for recovering them.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington gave the Internal Revenue Service exactly a month — until Aug. 10 — to file a report, which he demanded as part of a lawsuit from a conservative watchdog, Judicial Watch, against the agency.
Judicial Watch is seeking a wide range of documents from the IRS, including Lerner’s emails, as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. It has complained that the IRS didn’t tell it that the agency couldn’t recover all of Lerner’s emails from 2009 to 2011.
Sullivan cast his ruling as a compromise, and a potential way for Judicial Watch to get answers without the court wading any deeper into the matter. Judicial Watch had asked the court to potentially compel IRS officials to testify about the lost emails, through a process called limited discovery.
[Editor's Note: America was once the freest, but the Legislative-Executive-Judicial conspiratorial cabal elected to "represent" us has miserably failed (intentionally) to lawfully enforce the Constitution and has almost destroyed what was once our bastion of liberty for their personal gain instead of their oath to defend the CONSTITUTION! Since they have immunity and you can't impeach the entire CONgress for "high crimes and misdemeanors", WE live with voting for the least corrupt candidate(s) who (seemingly) sincerely propose to muster widespread agreement to restore liberty by significantly reducing the size of federal government to a weak, central government for defensive purposes only (without income tax). Unfortunately, many elected reps are induced and persuaded (by whatever means) into supporting the interests of very well-funded, power-wielding, small groups. Also, many voters cast their vote for a candidate who might enable a vicarious experience of power instead of a real experience of freedom in their life.]
The FairTax is a consumption tax unilaterally applied to all Americans at the same rate. For businesses, payroll taxes would no longer exist. Our exports would include a heavy tax for overseas buyers purchasing our products, while our imports would be cheaper for us to purchase. I'm not sure how this would affect GDP, as more information is necessary.
According to the FairTax website, "Under the FairTax, every person living in the United States pays a sales tax on purchases of new goods and services, excluding necessities due to the prebate." The prebate gives every legal resident household an "advance refund" at the beginning of each month so that purchases made up to the poverty level are tax-free.
So a family of four making something like $50,000/year should not have to pay taxes, thus preventing an unfair burden on low-income families. Since the FairTax eliminates both federal and payroll taxes, you get to keep your gross pay amount of each paycheck earned.
