[ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

[spike]

>… On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

 

…

>>… If we are disallowed from comparing any nation’s top executive to Hitler, then we learned exactly nothing from the bitter lessons of that dictator’s rise to power.

>…And that's the break: Hitler rose to power with the intention of staying.  If Obama is not staying in office past 2016, then why would he be doing things to expand government power if his own rule were the objective?  What you argue for is not the case…

 

Oh I see.  I never thought Obama or Bush intended to try to hold onto office past their second term.  I don’t believe that would be possible in the USA.  The presidency only has power thru the constitution.  If the president violates that, then that president has no legal authority.

Here’s where I would go with the comparisons: both Bush and Obama expanded executive branch powers.  This makes me nervous since the 16 amendment is written in such a way as to be very open-ended.  The constitution was carefully designed with checks and balances on government power in place, but the IRS is an example of a bureaucracy not bound by the rules and regulations which apply to criminal cases.  For instance, if you are arrested, you are presumed innocent.  The IRS does not presume you innocent.  If they come after you, it is your job to prove your innocence, rather than their job to prove your guilt.  They get to decide if your evidence is sufficient to prove your innocence.  They are both the prosecutor and the judge.  Good luck.  

Next, consider the EPA, the CIA, the NSA, and fill in the blank with as much alphabet soup as you want.  The NSA doesn’t bother with all those messy constitutional restrictions on their power.  (Hi NSA guy reading our email!)  These bureaucracies form a shadow government which has a lot more power in some important ways than the actual government, and it all answers to the executive branch.  This represents an extra-constitutional expansion of the powers of the executive branch.  I don’t feel comfortable with any expansion of the powers of the executive branch, which is what Hitler was all about: he wanted to make all the calls himself without bothering with a legislature.  We can’t Godwin’s Law our way out of it: Hitler did that.  Bush and Obama both did likewise; expanded executive branch powers.  Nixon tried to, but failed.  

If the IRS can effectively silence its own political opponents, do we still have freedom of speech?  You recognize that the Tea party imbroglio is all about the IRS silencing its own political opponents, ja?  We get tangled up in the question of whether the White House ordered any of this, but I don’t.  It’s unlikely they will ever be able to prove that, if they can just claim the hard disks crashed and the president can pre-emptively declare them innocent.  The IRS has political views of its own, and it doesn’t exactly collapse to left and right: they hate the Tea Party, regardless of which side of the political spectrum that party inhabits.  So the IRS took action to destroy the Tea Party.  There is nothing preventing this in the constitution.  Does not that cause you to worry?  Why?

spike

 

 

 

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