Myopia (mine)
Jan. 6th, 2005 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumBertie has (though I forget it sometimes... I am not free of tunnel vision) a more damning statement than the torture paragrapgh.
He thinks the President is the law.
Ponder that.
It's a staggering claim, the authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."
Inherent. Part and parcel of the office is the ability to set aside the laws. If the President says do it, it isn't a crime. If the law says do it, and the President says don't, that isn't a crime either.
Forget Nuremburg. Forget Nixon (though he tried that gambit) forget the Rule of Law (how can one who is able to set a law aside, break one? The don't apply). Forget the consent of the governed. Forget the Magna Carta.
The President is above, nay, beyond the law. He defines it. He is the same, in effect, as Louis XIV. "L'Etat, C'est Moi"
Everyone should recoil. Republicans should be apalled. Democrats should be disgusted. Libertarians should tremble with righteous indignation.
But all of us should step back and think on it.
The proposed head of law enforcement for the United States has said that his boss answers to nothing but his sense of right and wrong.
I recall a previous leader of the people of America who thought that. His name too was George; George III.
He thinks the President is the law.
Ponder that.
It's a staggering claim, the authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."
Inherent. Part and parcel of the office is the ability to set aside the laws. If the President says do it, it isn't a crime. If the law says do it, and the President says don't, that isn't a crime either.
Forget Nuremburg. Forget Nixon (though he tried that gambit) forget the Rule of Law (how can one who is able to set a law aside, break one? The don't apply). Forget the consent of the governed. Forget the Magna Carta.
The President is above, nay, beyond the law. He defines it. He is the same, in effect, as Louis XIV. "L'Etat, C'est Moi"
Everyone should recoil. Republicans should be apalled. Democrats should be disgusted. Libertarians should tremble with righteous indignation.
But all of us should step back and think on it.
The proposed head of law enforcement for the United States has said that his boss answers to nothing but his sense of right and wrong.
I recall a previous leader of the people of America who thought that. His name too was George; George III.
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Point of detail?
Date: 2005-01-08 01:58 am (UTC)Re: Point of detail?
Date: 2005-01-10 05:15 am (UTC)The inherent power of the president to set aside the law, should he disagree with it?
It's in the torture memo, and it was the principle basis on which the use of more strenous methods was justified (that and the amusing fictions, and circumstances, of our possession of Guantanamo.
I'm not at home, so my archiving is less available, Phil Carter, of Intel Dump did a piece on the sentence. Intel Dump June 07, 2004
TK