Do We have an Imperial Presidency in the United States Of America? **READ**

[Crossis]

**edit: may want to move this to the "talk back" section I'm not sure it belongs here

***Just finished typing this I know it’s long, it’s actually a lot longer and a lot more than I intended to write but its an extremely interesting subject and I feel like all of you should read it so your at least aware of some major SERIOUS issues going on in our country. I know it’s a long read but you guys really should take the time as a lot of the stuff in here affects you on a daily basis. Thomas Jefferson once said “A nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never will be.”****

First off let me suggest I think we should open up a new forums for debates, whether they be political, social, or whatever. I think it would be fun just to be able to have educational, civilized, INTELLIGENT debates with fellow members of the community =D.

With that said, this particular topic came up in my class on modern western politics. We were discussing how the framers of the United States had originally intended for the legislative branch (our congress) to be the most powerful branch of the government. They believed this so fervently that they made congress a bi-cameral system, splitting it into two houses; the Senate and the House of Representatives.

However in our modern era, especially after World War II it has become a generally accepted notion that the office of President and the executive branch have ascertained a higher level of power than that of our legislative branch. No longer do Americans picture congress when they think of American government, no, instead they picture the President at the helm of country leading us through all our endeavors.

I’m going to divide my stance that the Presidency has become imperialistic into three categories; foreign powers, domestic powers, and the failures of our checks and balance system.

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Foreign Powers

Many people know that the President is the acting Commander and Chief of our armed forces, the army, air force, and navy. What most Americans don’t realize is the power that comes with this authority.

First off, think of how many armed conflicts the United States has been in ever since World War II. Let me name a few to jog your memory; Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Lebanon, Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan just to name a few.

Now. . . . these were all wars correct? Does it shock you that there hasn’t been a single declaration of war since the end of World War II? Every single armed conflict the United States has been in since World War II has been brought about by Presidential order and the confirmation by congress with a joint-resolution. No declaration of war by congress which the constitution itself says is necessary in order to enter a war.

The President can order troops into any combat situation without the authorization of congress as long as the troops in this situation are in combat no longer 60 days. 60 days! Do you know what our military is capable of doing in just one day? After 60 days the President must ascertain approval from Congress to remain in any armed conflict. If approval is not given the president has another 30 days to organize a withdrawal. That’s a total of 90 days our President can send our military anywhere in the world and carry out large scale combat operations without being checked by congress. Think of how much time it took us to topple the formal Iraqi government and military.

Aside from large scale public military operations the President can also order troops into smaller more strategical operations without reporting to Congress until they have already been carried out. Consider any scandal in the past 60 years, the most famous of which was probably the Iran-Contra affair.

However, as large of a power as this may seem it is only the tip of the iceberg. On top of being the head of the military the President also has complete discretion as to the appointment and firing of the highest ranking generals. President Bush chose to exercise this power with his generals when it came to his actions in the middle east. As soon as a general disagrees with the President or contradicts the presidential agenda and wishes they are fired and replaced with someone the President knows will do exactly as they say. So effectively, at the most crucial levels in the chain of command you have men who are essentially puppets of the President.

Aside from war powers the President also has the largest influence over foreign policy. The President is the one who receives, greets, and meets with foreign officials and ambassadors. The President is the one who has complete control over the image the United States puts off to the entire world. He is the one who seals and creates or breaks diplomacy with foreign nations. When a treaty is signed it is his signature. Another great point =D. Treaties officially need to be approved by congress. There has not been a treaty since World War II. Instead now we have Executive Agreements created and signed by the President that carry the same power yet require no approval by congress.

On top of his power to affect foreign diplomats who come to the United States the President is also the person in charge of appointing and hiring ambassadors. Remember the deal with the generals? Same exact thing here.

Domestic Powers

If your still awake and managed to read this far I applaud you.

If you thought the previously mentioned powers were extensive and frightening that was only foreign powers I haven’t even touched domestic powers yet =D.

I’ll start with one of the presidential powers I have a hard time conceiving the relevancy of, the power to grant pardons and reprieves. Just incase some of you don’t know what those are and are afraid to ask I’ll expand for you. Pardons are essentially a get out of jail ticket for anyone who has committed a federal crime. No matter what crime it was (excluding treason), as long as it’s a federal charge the President can grant you a pardon and you get out of jail. The same applies to a reprieve except a reprieve only shortens your sentence say from life to 15 years. Can anyone justify the essential need for this power? Please?

Remember that large discussion about appointing ambassadors and generals. Guess what? It has WAY more of an impact as far as domestic powers are concerned. Consider the Presidential Cabinet. It consists of but is not limited to; Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Sciences, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Agriculture. These aren’t even all the members of the cabinet but as you can see from the titles these positions and the people in them create policy that affects all Americans on almost a daily basis. The sectors these people are in charge of affect everything from what food you eat and how much it costs to our national security.

And yep, you guessed it, the President has complete discretion over who he wants to appoint and fire from these positions. Secretary of Homeland Security doesn’t think the threat level of terrorism is appropriate and needs to be brought down the President can just fire him and appoint someone who does. I don’t think I even need to expand further on this point, just consider it for a second.

Moving on to one of the more well known about powers, the veto. After congress has received a majority vote on a bill it must be signed off by the President before it can be written into law. If the President does not agree with the policy of the bill he can simple veto it outright and send it back to congress where it must achieve a 2/3 majority vote to overturn the veto (I’ll address this in the next section) or he can pocket veto the bill by simply just not signing it. The President can flat out deny any piece of legislation that is passed by congress the supposed representatives of the will of the American people without a second thought if it conflicts with his personal agenda. While I acknowledge the fact that this power is in place to check congress you will see why later this power is far more potent than it appears.

And finally the President has the power to propose and put any piece of his own legislation directly before Congress. Not much to comment on this aside from the fact the President can bypass a lot of annoying (but necessary) bureaucracy to further his political agenda in passing legislation. 

The Failure of the Checks and Balance System

I mentioned earlier that our checks and balance system in regards to the executive branch are either not working or simply aren’t efficient. I don’t mean to single out President Bush but he has broken so many precedents and extended the power of both the Presidency and the Executive Branch so far it’s astonishing.

I’ll start with just the executive branch in general since that’s easier. Lets consider the CIA. The CIA was formed in 1947 after World War II to gather intelligence on foreign nations. The main goal of the CIA was to prevent any unknown attacks against the United States as well as to observe the nuclear progress of other nations (most notably the Soviet Union) during the Cold War. The CIA was formed with a rule directly and clearly saying that the agency was to operate ONLY on foreign soil. The main reason for this is the CIA does not need warrants for any search, seizure, or any other action they may take. The general rule of thumb is if they are tracking someone or if an investigation leads back to the United States they must hand everything over to the FBI which deals with domestic issues and is bound by law to ascertain warrants for their actions.

The Patriot Act changed this and many other things that took away a lot of American freedoms. Although somewhat restricted the CIA is now allowed to operate within US territory. That means if you’re a terror suspect they have the right to search and seize you without a warrant.

A nifty thing the patriot act also did was allow the US military to operate on US soil. This may not sound like a big deal when put like that but consider this. The founding fathers were STRONGLY against every allowing a governments military to operate within its own borders. That is why the National Guard was created in order to deal with domestic problems and insurgency, although now they are being deployed to Iraq that is a complete separate issue. The framers believed that allowing the government sponsored military to operate within national borders was one of the first signs of tyranny. Especially since the President is Commander and Chief of the armed forces that means he can order marines, the air force, or the navy to take any action within US soil now. How’s that for scary?

Let’s move on to how checks and balances today fail when it comes to the president. It is a federal offense and consider treason to leak any information dealing with the CIA one of our most classified and secretive government agencies. The chief of staff deliberately outed the name of a CIA agent in an act of political revenge. The evidence was all there that proved beyond a doubt what he did. It was not only limited to the Chief of Staff but also many other key executive white house officials. If it had been anyone else they would have been handcuffed, tried, and put in jail all in a very short period of time. None of them were ever convicted. The only conviction came for perjury during a hearing. Wow. . . .

While we’re on the topic of illegal activities lets consider the not just illegal but unconstitutional wire taps that were carried out by the President and his staff. Once again clear evidence that proves beyond a doubt the Presidents involvement and full knowledge as well as his staff as to what they were doing was provided. There are even tapes of conversations where they discuss the ramifications of their actions if they would be caught. Clearly this is a more than ideal situation for Congress to impeach the president. Congress and the American people have lost their check on the President. Congress would rather impeach a President for cheating on his wife than a President who knowingly carries out pre-meditate unconstitutional acts.

Congress also fails when it comes to checking the Presidents veto. Thanks to our two-party system it is near impossible to rally both Democrats and Republicans to overturn a veto with the 2/3 vote. This became clear with the recent bills involving funding by Iraq. They were passed by congress and then immediately vetoed by the President. Congress was shy of the votes to overturn the veto so they kept re-modifying and submitting the bill until it finally turned into exactly what the President wanted, more money with no restrictions.

The framers also intended for the American people to be a check on the President. The President at this moment in time has a 28% approval rating. That means 72% of Americans do not approve both the Presidents decisions and actions. How can a President with those kinds of ratings just blatantly ignore the will of the American people when he carries out his decisions and actions. He is supposed to be an appointed representative of the will of the majority of Americans. Lets look at the math, majority = 50%. Approval rating = 28%. 

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With all that said I would love to open it up to you guys for not only a debate but your comments and thoughts. How do you feel about some of this information I presented. Is any of it new to you, a lot?

Let me know I’m curious to see your guys opinions =D.

-Crossis

[fraggle 79]

I agree with your points here, however..., I can assure you that if you get everyone involved in this,
Half the people won't speak to each other in here. One night me and earl were talking and before
it got too bad we both had to stop.
Sad to say but as much as I want to discuss this stuff, I prefer to be on good terms with everyone
and have a good time.

However if there is a majority wanting to have a seperate section for this then i may participate.

[Crossis]

It's not too hard to separate politics from the friendship =D. We're all fairly mature its what TE prides itself on its members heh. I don't jump on people for their political beliefs I find it fun and educational to debate, it's the best way to learn the other sides point of view and to open your eyes to things you haven't previously considered.

I also meant to include it my original post but I forgot to. I myself and a right leaning moderate. I find great points from both political parties while at the same time disagreeing with policy outright from both sides as well. I am registered as a republican but I do not support President Bush if it wasn't clear from my post and I feel like he is rejecting a lot of Republican ideals and I think thats why most Republicans both politicians and civilians alike dislike him =D.

Get involved Fraggle! Give me something to read and keep my mind engaged during the summer.

[Shardz]

I don't know where to start.. .heh.

I pretty strong agree with what's up there. The president has too much power. The cabinet, for example, should definately not be controlled by the president. They are in and of the departments they head, presidents themselves, and should be elected by their departments or congress. The president should defintely not be able to fire as many people as he can. At the most, he should be able to propose they get fired, and run it by congress, or whoever would be appropriate (with votes).

Another thing that was unmentioned that disgusts me is that the American people have no direct impact on who the next president is. Sure, we have a popular vote, but that does not control the electoral college at all. Sure, if a member of the electoral college votes against the popular vote, he might be voted down later, but that doesn't stop the act, not untill after the damage is done. The president's golf buddies are predisposed to vote for him against the popular vote anyways. We also cannot remove anyone from office, or even do anything about it besides write our congressman. By the time it actually makes it past his aides and into his/her hands, it will be a long time before it even gets congress's attention, than even longer to vote on and actually take the president out.

Also, all that military stuff disturbs me. What's to stop this patriot act from turning into something like the KGB and their activities in Soviet Russia. Someone is 'suspected' of being a dissident, or in our case, a 'terrorist' (and if the NSA just checks someones browsing history and notices they've been to a few sketchy sites, but has made no action or mention of them doing terrorist activities), then promptly arrested, then sent to Quantanimo Bay for an undefined period of time. What's to stop the govt from doing this? Not much anymore. Since apparently just suspecting someone is enough to send them away for a long time, where they will probably torture you and play physcological games on you. [This just occured to me, I'm writing this while listening to Angerfist, which I guess is a physcological game in and of itself].

Another disturbing military aspect what Crossis mentioned, that the president basically gets 90 free days to do whatever. And as stated, our military and do a whole lot of things in 3 months. We could seize a small country in africa in that time, or a whole slew of other things. Plus we're developing weapons that can pretty much hit any point in the globe in under and hour (see: X-51 Cruise Missile). All we pretty much have to do is say there's terrorists their and that apparently gives us give us enough justification to do whatever we want. Hopefully the UN wouldn't take us at face value. (Do they even anymore?)
 

Anyways, (some tell me it's "Anyway", but locally [Massachusetts], we say "Anyways"), that's about it for now.

Angerfist video was: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tNme5ZwNJ9I
I tend to prefer Jumpstyle over Hardcore, but that video/song was ok.

[Crossis]

Just want to clarify some of the points you made I'll post an actual reply and reaction to some of your suggestions later tonight

Also, all that military stuff disturbs me. What's to stop this patriot act from turning into something like the KGB and their activities in Soviet Russia. Someone is 'suspected' of being a dissident, or in our case, a 'terrorist' (and if the NSA just checks someones browsing history and notices they've been to a few sketchy sites, but has made no action or mention of them doing terrorist activities), then promptly arrested, then sent to Quantanimo Bay for an undefined period of time. What's to stop the govt from doing this? Not much anymore. Since apparently just suspecting someone is enough to send them away for a long time, where they will probably torture you and play physcological games on you.

While the CIA can search and seize you without a warrant your constitutional rights are still protected. For example the right to Habeas Corpus, equal representation, fair trial, etc. All prisoners within Guantanamo prison are NOT US citizens. Hows that for foreign policy we go into any country we want and kidnap, oh wait sorry.... "extradite" any person we suspect of terror, and grant them no rights at all. I don't understand how we expect to be the beaming symbol of democracy and for the World to see democracy as a fair and equal place when we kidnap people, hold them indefinitely, don't tell them what they are charged with, and then proceed to physically and psychologically abuse them. I mean while its a US prison on US sanctioned soil US rights and laws don't apply. Makes loads of sense -_-

But anyways. The CIA cant deport you to Guantanamo but then again they are so secretive and so highly classified we wouldn't know if they were anyways but I doubt it.  If the CIA arrested you here on suspicion of terror you would be charged formally and all your normal legal rights would be upheld (as long as your a US citizen, if you're not you
re fucked)

Another disturbing military aspect what Crossis mentioned, that the president basically gets 90 free days to do whatever. And as stated, our military and do a whole lot of things in 3 months. We could seize a small country in africa in that time, or a whole slew of other things. Plus we're developing weapons that can pretty much hit any point in the globe in under and hour (see: X-51 Cruise Missile). All we pretty much have to do is say there's terrorists their and that apparently gives us give us enough justification to do whatever we want. Hopefully the UN wouldn't take us at face value. (Do they even anymore?)

As sad as it is to say we don't even need nuclear weapons. We have enough conventional weapons at hand to do the same amount of damage without even putting a dent in our supply. If we wanted to we could literately flatten the entire middle east region within a day. I just find that particular thought as frightening as a nuclear holocaust. US global relations and our role within the UN is a whole other debate =P.

I'll get to your opinion on the election process and how the US is slowly drifting away from a representative republic in my next post.

[Shardz]

The X-51 isn't a nuclear weapon.

And yeah, I guess since I'm american I would be protected, but like you said, if I wasnt. And still, being american doesn't stop the NSA from recording my phone conversations and my internet activity.

Thanks for clearing up my muddle of ramblings 

[wonder.]

prob some good points, but alittle to long to read... sry.. 

[Crossis]

Like I said in the post I know it's long but it covers  A LOT of very serious issues that most of the population isn't aware of. It's scary that they aren't and they don't realize half the things that are going on in our government and how radical the changes have been in the past 8 years. I guarantee you the founding fathers are rolling over in their graves right now. If we got a strong president that the nation liked and supported I can see our country easily straying quite far from the loosely representative republic it is right now.

In other words. If we continue down the path we're going our republic and possibly democracy as we have known it in our country will be gone in less than 50 years. All it takes is one war, one widespread common fear and people uniting behind the President to turn him into a virtual dictator.

[BLITZ]

God this is no place for a Lou Dobbs tonight debate lol

[Shmotz]

im not even gonna try and read this, even if i had...i wouldnt touch that with wonderbreads dick, and blitz pushin

[Shardz]

All it takes is one war, one widespread common fear and people uniting behind the President to turn him into a virtual dictator.

Gee, look at nazi germany. You described it in one sentence. WWII, and the whole burning of the Reichstag and seizing power. I guess that's another debate again, but if that happens, it will certainly mark the defeat of our nation (and my emmigration).

Still waiting on your reply about the election process   

[$ickne$$]

First of all i would like to congratulate crossis.. ok you are a very intelligent person and i appreciate the abviouse amount of time that you have put into this(whether its job or hobbie). although all this disturbing talk might offend some people. the more important fact, is that this is an educational experiance for the not so wise. witch in my opinion, is pretty damn cool. if there were more people out there like you this country would infact be a better place. we need more people to educate about the truths of these very serious situations.

Example everyone knows that the president has alot of power but honestly crossis is the only person that i have had the plesure of meeting that... has said it all at the same time.

an everyday citizen will turn on the news and hear the president vetoed something today.
but now mabye some of them will say ok... what else has he done today fired 7 important people, sent out 3 secritive misiions to kill people he just plain dosnt like, very poorly represented the us to some forien official the could potentionally help the us.
My personaly opinion on the hole govenment thing is that they are not a group of people that try and help our people but rather a bunch of fuc**** high class gansters doing what they want when they want with complete disregard in what i best not only for the us but for all humanity and that should be what is most important. human race.... not country.

$ickne$$

[fraggle 79]

I think High schools should have a mandatory debate/political class. Poeple used to learn these things voluntarily.
Now very few people are politically informed or care for that matter on how much many decissions (sp?) affect them.
I people continue to be ignorant of the facts we'll end us in an aristocracy.

[dizzy_jester]

witch in my opinion, is pretty damn cool. if there were more people out there like you this country would infact be a better place. we need more people to educate about the truths of these very serious situations.

Example everyone knows that the president has alot of power but honestly crossis is the only person that i have had the plesure of meeting that... has said it all at the same time.

$ickne$$

there are many people like crossis in the united states.  Many of them are heard just the majority of the united states doesnt care.   i mena if you ask them they will be outraged by things they hear yet when it comes to voting time they sit at home and watch reality tv shows.   Its not like back in the 60's during the yippie generation where politics was a normal thing for young and intelligent people.   

secondly i would like to add that even if the world was increased to 100% intelligence of political affairs and policies that the same thing would happen.  you gotta rememerber that politics is almost teh same when it comes to left and right wing.   Obviously there are differences but when it comes to action, its pretty much teh same.  There are two parties with different ideas but in the end only look out for eachother. i hate to say this but i feel that the world is begiginning to be controlled by US Rich kids... which is begginning to show of the problem with lets say communsim. rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  with no chance of teh poor to be heard.   The two parties only allow 2 poeple for you to vote for, and sadly enough, its like who do you want to vote for, this dumbass or this one.  which is what i think happened with the bush vs kerry election. 

i hate those that saythey are liberal or conservative beaause i think if you are only one or teh other you are naive. you trying to tell me there isnt one thing a liberal can agree with a conservative...get teh fuck out of here.  and vice versa.   

i sway to the left and i voted for bush because i knew that kerry was a retard.  and quite frankly wanted to see bush finish what he started which is proving to be not much

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