Text 19890, 48 rader
Skriven 2008-08-19 05:04:36 av Bob Ackley (1:300/3)
  Kommentar till text 19758 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Morality and law
========================
Replying to a message of Robert Bashe to Dan Ceppa:

 RB> Dan Ceppa wrote to Robert Bashe on Saturday August 16 2008 at 17:52:

 RB>>> Let's just ignore Iraq, but what Bush has done to _Americans_
 RB>>> reminds me of the retroactive legalization of the "Night of the
 RB>>> Long Knives" in Germany in 1934. I've come from defending the man
 RB>>> because I didn't see proof of misdeeds, to seeing just what he has
 RB>>> done to America, its legal system and its reputation throughout the
 RB>>> globe. If ever a president needed to be impeached, it would have
 RB>>> been Mr. Bush...

 DC>> What you are looking at is the culmination of efforts of the neocons
 DC>> to restore the "rightful" power of the "unitary" presidency.

 DC>> That process began shortly after Nixon's excesses were reigned in.
 DC>> The result is what resides in the White House today.

 RB> Sorry, Dan, but I have no idea what you're talking about.

The 'unitary executive' concept originally meant 'one executive,' not a
committee
or group of two or three as in the old Roman triumvirate.  IOW, one person in
charge.
The current right wing extremist idea is that 'unitary executive' means that
all
government power resides in the executive, and that the executive does not need
to
check with or pay any attention to either of the other two supposedly co-equal
branches
before doing something.  IOW, under the current right wing theory, a 'unitary
executive'
is a tinpot dictator; in Bush minor's case, a wannabe tinpot dictator.

Insofar as Dan's comments, way back in the 1970s a lot of folks - especially
those
in congress - were unhappy with 'Tricky Dick's' misuse of executive power
(using
the IRS to harass political opponents, for instance), and passed several laws
intended
to rein in that misuse of power.  The right wing has ever since been trying to
get rid
of those limits on executive power.  They've become more successful since Bush
minor's election in 2000.


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 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:300/3)