Liberal fascism, anyone?
Are you scared of President Obama's latest Executive Order (on National Defense Resources Preparedness; slipped under the radar on Friday)? And if not, shouldn't you be?
Here's a sample:
The authority of the President conferred by section 101 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071, to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders, and to allocate materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense, is delegated to the following agency heads:
(1) the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer;
(2) the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy;
(3) the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources;
(4) the Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation;
(5) the Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and
(6) the Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials.
Blogger Ozboy at Liberty Gibbet explains why this is worrying:
Under this decree, which revokes similar but weaker executive orders issued by Reagan (1988) and Clinton (1994), and is a tremendous expansion of the powers granted under the 1950 Defense Production Act—written at a time when the United States was under imminent threat of communist infiltration from within, and nuclear attack from without, and considered excessive even then—Obama can simply bypass Congress, at his whim, to commandeer, as you can see above, pretty much everything in the country; grant power of subpoena to Cabinet Secretaries to afford compulsion of these directives; require contractors to work for the government, without compensation, and then legally bar them from suing for compensation afterwards.
Worse, these provisions can be enacted by the president without a formal congressional Declaration of War; in other words, at any time the president deems, at his sole discretion, the situation to be an emergency. In other words, at whim.
Joseph Corica at Digital Journal is also concerned:
To those of you who may not agree that this is a power grab, I challenge you to find anything in this order that says it is not in effect except in case of emergency. Everything in it alludes to "even in peacetime" or "in emergency and non-emergency". This is not a 'Democrat' or 'Republican' issue. Americans from all over the political spectrum should be concerned about this unprecedented grasp for power, as well as the lack of coverage from major news networks. Why are Continuity of Government plans, dreamt up to combat the worst-case nuclear holocaust scenario, being seized upon to grab power in peacetime?
Yes, quite. What does Obama know that we don't? Or is it even worse than that: a response to no imminent crisis in particular; just another cynical move by a ruthless leftist ideologue to raise the powers of the executive to levels which would have surely won a twenty minute standing ovation from assembled party delegates in Kim Il Sung's North Korea, Mao's China or Stalin's Soviet Union.
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Comments:
Mar '11
Re: Liberal fascism, anyone?
The original EO came out during the Cold War; specifically, during the Korean War, when the balloon that could go up at any time meant that we were all in against the USSR and the ChiComs. Ed Morrissey at HotAir had a pretty good breakdown of what is new in the EO this time around. It seems that since the Department of Homeland Security didn't exist the last time the EO was renewed, Janet Napolitano would have little to do except for running around in a circle shrieking. That sounds like a feature, not a bug, but there you go.
Mostly, it sounds like the various Secretaries are having their permission to think reconfirmed. There is no evidence yet that any of them in fact are thinking or even can think, but we'll see.
Oct '10
Re: Liberal fascism, anyone?
And thanks to Percival, the money quote in the Hot Air link is:
"...There are, perhaps, some issues worth discussing that this EO raises. The fact that the President of the United States is still exercising authority granted during the Korean War and the height of the Cold War is yet another reflection of how power, once assumed by the Imperial Presidency, is never surrendered..."
May '10
Re: Liberal fascism, anyone?
More to the point, the notion that any politician can legally expand his own authority with a simple stroke of a pen is ludicrous.
Sep '10
Re: Liberal fascism, anyone?
"We can't wait!"
Jan '11
Re: Liberal fascism, anyone?
When Bush was in office, the Left was screaming about using 9/11 fear-mongering to assume power. Now, stupid me, I thought they were complaining about the power grab. But here Obama is preparing to take unlimited power, and he just skipped past any justification. The power grab is worse, but without any overt fear-mongering. And the Left is happy with that, apparently.
So, note to self: when grabbing tyrannical power, no one will mind if you just do it casually. No drama Obama.
Nov '10
Re: Liberal fascism, anyone?
KC, I think the mistake we've always made (conservatives I mean) is to think that the liberals want the same things we do. They simply do not. They don't care about limited government, they think it's good for a president to wield limitless power...so long as its the right power. They of course believe that they alone have the wisdom and understanding to plan society out, to make it work right. So ideas like democracy are outdated. We cannot possible leave important things to the little people. That is why these kinds of things will always be lauded by the left, in private. In public they'll say "well Reagan did it!" in hopes that this will numb the masses into submission. And they are probably correct. We the people won't be able to respond to that and we'll just shrug our shoulders and move on, because we can't be bothered to educate ourselves about the world in which we live. The most we will do is share some diatribe about Obama's birth certificate on Facebook and feel like we've done something. Maybe I'm a little too pessimistic...
May '10
Re: Liberal fascism, anyone?
"We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedoms of the individual must become."
- Benito Mussolini