[ExI] Nobody can say we weren’t warned

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2016 3:32 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Nobody can say we weren’t warned

 

 

On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 4:32 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

 

​> ​>…Anyone here could suffer the same fate, if speech really isn’t free.

 

​

>…Trump cares far more for the second amendment than for ​the first, that's why speech will become far less free if he wins. …

 

 

Aren’t you glad presidents don’t make law?  So am I.  Our system is set up that way intentionally.  Looooong live the beloved Constitution, after we raise it from the dead.

 

 

>…​ Most probably haven't been ​able to pick up on the subtle hints in my posts but the truth is I really don't care for Donald Trump very much…John K Clark​

 

Subtle though they were, I did detect a vague hint of mild disapproval if I read carefully.

 

Your post brings up a good point however.  The US constitution was set up with the government having enumerated powers.  Over time that has become accumulated powers.  If anything good comes of this choice between two (borrowing a term) deplorables, it is that congress may pull out a dusty unused copy of the COTUS, read article 1, section 8, remind themselves it is their job as elected officials to make government accumulated powers return to enumerated powers.

 

I would suggest starting with a big dangerous change that happened in our lifetimes for those of us who are middle aged-er than average: the very dangerous precedent of a POTUS having the authority to commit troops anywhere without congressional declaration of war.  Congress is legally in charge of that, not POTUS.

 

If you Google around, you may be able to find video of Franklin Roosevelt haranguing, shrieking at congress to ACT!  NOW!  in committing troops to the war in Europe.  They wouldn’t do it and he had not the authority.  Here was a popular president having already been elected thrice, but he could not persuade congress to come to the assistance of our longtime ally England.  Roosevelt was honorable, a law and order guy.

 

A mere five years later, a US president committed troops to Korea as “military advisers.”  Of course they soon found themselves “advising” North Korean troops to perish, and North Korean troops were offering similar advice to American advisors.  A decade later, another POTUS sent American troops into harm’s way, making little effort to call them advisors.  In both cases, there was no congressional declaration of war.  Bushes 41 and 43 at least requested congressional approval to commit troops to Iraq in 1991 and 2003, which was granted by the legislators on both occasions.

 

Having nuclear missiles under the dual control of the POTUS and Secretary of Defense appears illegal to me: both are executive branch employees, when it should be the legislature controlling those.  Firing nukes is a declaration of war, so it is a defacto congressional duty.

 

I understand the reasoning: back in the day when nuke missiles were developed, they needed to be ready to fire on short notice in the event of a surprise attack by those sneaky commies.  In those days, phones had wires and no one carried them on their person.  Back then, we had no early warning systems.  But now is not then.  Now we can put that authority back where it legally resides.  Then we need not worry if our president wanted to send troops to Syria (she wouldn’t have the authority) or declare and enforce a no-fly zone (congress would need to do that (but this would be a declaration of war (against not only Syria but also their allies the commies (which would be a bad thing (and I trust congress way more than either of these two front runners to eschew starting World War 3 when we have nothing to gain and everything to lose.)))))

 

If we returned to enumerated powers from accumulated powers, we wouldn’t care if the POTUS didn’t know what was Aleppo.  Understatement, we would prefer a POTUS who never heard of Aleppo.  If elected, he would get orders from congress that they had declared war.  Collective sanity and collective honesty would prevail.  

 

In the event of such a declaration, POTUS would then look it up on Google and decide how to execute the war.  I see no problem with that.  In that scenario, the POTUS would be mostly freed to take care of matters POTUS should be tending, such as a runaway federal budget deficit.  POTUS is an executive; the legislature is made up of lawmakers.  Executives deal with how to do the job on a budget.

 

Perhaps we need to stop electing lawyers to be chief executive and elect actual executives to be chief executive.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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