Creeping Dictatorship

[fastpat]

A Bush In Need Of Pruning

Too Many Powers

October 10, 2006

I miss the days of smoke-filled rooms when crooked pols chose corrupt presidential candidates who were approximately sane. Today we have a sort of presidential bus-station lottery. We choose as ruler any beer-hall putz who can shake hands and grin his way successfully through New Hampshire. This, plus the deep rot of the American political framework, is allowing the rapid conversion of the United States into something previous Americans would hardly recognize.

Permit me a foray of a paragraph into psychojournalism. It fascinates me to know that George Bush was a male cheerleader at Andover. Yes, it could have been worse. He might have been a table-dancer. But most of us who were in high school when he was recognize that you either came to watch football, or you came to watch the girl cheerleaders. There was something odd about a boy who wanted to be one.

We are ruled by a male cheerleader who favors torture. I wonder what things twist in the inner fog.

"Ricky, Ricky he's our man. If he can't do it, nobody can. Goooooooooooo Plesiosaurs!"

Given a president who seems chiefly concerned to display his indomitable manhood, the question arises: What restraints keep him from absolute control of a formidably armed nation of three hundred million? The Constitution, noblest of fables, was designed to do just this. But absent the will to enforce them, checks and balances do not exist, and laws, principles, and constitutions mean nothing. If no one says “no,” the president simply behaves as he wants. The genius of the strange little man in the White House has been to recognize this, to divine the weakness of the American political order.

When he wanted to attack Iraq, he simply lied, and lied again, and shifted his ground and lied again. It worked. When he didn’t want to follow the Geneva Conventions in his treatment of captured Iraqis, he just declared his prisoners of war not to be prisoners of war. Torture? He just did it and faced down the country and the world. Disregard of civil rights? Spying? He just did as he chose.

Here is the great discovery of the little man who doesn’t read. America is not the land of the free, nor of the brave, nor of the politically sentient. Nor is it a country of laws or of principles. It is a country of those who just do as they want. A president can do anything he chooses. Who will tell him no? Nobody has.

Today there is speculation as to whether he will make war, perhaps nuclear war, on Iran. The universal assumption seems to be that if he wants to, he will just do it. The legislature, already having given up its authority to declare war, seems to regard the military as the private guard of the president. Is it not interesting that one dim, pugnacious, ignorant little man can bring on nuclear war all by himself?

When Mr. Bush gets caught lying or breaking the law, he shows no embarrassment, contrition, or sense of having done anything wrong. He seems to have no conception of right and wrong, of principle. He is not accustomed to being told “no,” and accepts no constraints on his power. All that matters to him is that he get his way. He gets it.

Where will this lead? Obviously, to vastly increased police powers. But I wonder. If, down the pike, Bush announced that to protect us from terrorism he would have to postpone the presidential elections and remain in office—what would happen? Suppose he came up with a bit of supportive theater. If just before the elections something blew up, and were attributed not to the CIA but to Terrace, what then? The Reichstag has burned before. The public, the congress, the judiciary are so very, very easily manipulated. All it takes is the will to do it.

And that the little man has.

A tribal rite in the column racket is the discovery of darkness in the hearts of predidents, or witlessness, and we discover away industriously. I have done my share. I thought Clinton a bright, libidinous lout, Jimmy Carter a moralizing cipher, Reagan a sort of Grandfather Barbie and, by contrast, Eisenhower a wise man hiding behind remarkable syntax. None was evil, or mad. Bush is something new in presidential politics, genuinely dangerous and genuinely out of control. The time is ripe for him. America no longer has the institutional defenses to say "no."

What would happen if a president just refused to go? To remove him, someone would have to act. Who? Little would be necessary to stop a coup, granted. A couple of helicopters of Marines landing across the street from the White House would be enough. The various federal police bully civilians well (ask Steve Hatfill), but would find fighting real men another thing. But who in the military would have the courage to do it?

Would the public do anything? I doubt it. The Born Agains would support him, the suburban Christians suck their thumbs and wait, blacks ignore the matter, conservatives see it as necessary to stop Tersm, and most people would watch football on television. The necessary strength is not in the country. The timbers are rotten.

A popular uprising I cannot imagine. Who would rise? Overweight people with Volvos do not become urban guerrillas. Again, conservatives, who tend to be armed, rank among the most ardent supporters of Mr. Bush. In any event, how does one rise? Would upset semi-heterosexual professors at Cornell hold a Take Back the Night march? Oh joy. After three days the vigilists would become bored. Back to the television set.

The Supreme Court certainly would, and could, do nothing. The court consists of insular antiquities who so far have shown no disposition to stand up to Bush. The termites have hollowed the judicial woodpile.

Congress? It does what is paid to do, by anyone. What could it do? Some might say that it could shut off funding. With the threat of imprisonment at its collective head? It would huff, fumble, and hold committee hearings. But a coup would have to be squelched immediately or not at all.

My impression is that much of the public wants authoritarian rule, or would be perfectly content with it if it even noticed its arrival. No, I can’t prove it. But what do most people care about beyond television on screens that grow ever larger, beyond porn, beer, and the competitive purchase of grander SUVs? I ask this not as a lifelong curmudgeon being tiresome (though doubtless I am both) but seriously. Who in a sprawling TV-besotted country cares about the Constitution? A comfortable police state is after all comfortable.

I do not predict that the reigning curiosity will stage a coup (which should it occur would not be a coup but “an emergency measure,” necessary to protect us from Terrace). I do say that what is happening today is unlike anything that has happened before, and that people do not always see what is coming. If you read books from the Germany of the 1930s, you will find that people were uneasy, divided, unsure of things, but had no idea just what the squatty little man with the voice had in mind for them. He just did it. The unimaginable does sometime occur. We notice only afterward.

Fred Reed is author of several books, "Nekkid in Austin: Throw Your Inner Child Down a Well", and A Brass Pole in Bangkok: A Thing I Aspire To Be.

[Jim Richards]

Hmmmm. "A Brass Pole in Bangkok: A Thing I Aspire To Be." I'm conjuring up some interesting images of my stay in Pattaya a couple of years after the end of the Vietnam war. Hmmmmmm.

[Flatbutt1]

food for thought IMO, no not the brass pole

[RallyJon]

Today we have a sort of presidential bus-station lottery. We choose as ruler any beer-hall putz who can shake hands and grin his way successfully through New Hampshire.

LOL--that would be, um, DEMOCRACY.

I think we should go back to only wealthy white male landowners voting. That worked much better.

[john70t]

In the last couple elections, a large number of black (democratic) demographic votes were "lost", and/or had the polling station location and times limited. Same thing.

With easily-hackable Diebold machines (without paper backup) this is all null though.

[gaijindabe]

More Presidents have been cheerleaders than Captains of football teams.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by RallyJon
LOL--that would be, um, DEMOCRACY.

I think we should go back to only wealthy white male landowners voting. That worked much better.

Remove "white" or add "and black" and you've got something.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by john70t
In the last couple elections, a large number of black (democratic) demographic votes were "lost", and/or had the polling station location and times limited. Same thing.

If by polling times "limited" you mean that the polls closed at the times posted well in advance, then that's correct. I know of no occurrance of polls closing early. Usually they allow all voters currently standing in line at closing time to vote.

Without regard to race.

[Eric 951]

Originally posted by fastpat
Remove "white" or add "and black" and you've got something.

sweet. Let's have the # of votes one can wield depend upon total acreage owned, this would certainly be advantageous for me.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Eric 951
sweet. Let's have the # of votes one can wield depend upon total acreage owned, this would certainly be advantageous for me.

And me as well, but I think owning one's own home is sufficient for one vote.

That would eliminate apartment dwellers voting for increases in property taxes, so common in New York and California.

[Drdogface]

Originally posted by fastpat
Remove "white" or add "and black" and you've got something.

Pat, I can't believe YOU said that..atta boy +1

[RallyJon]

That would eliminate apartment dwellers voting for increases in property taxes, so common in New York and California.

And on the Jersey shore. They tax the crap out of non-resident homeowners who get no vote.

Or people who work in Philadelphia and have to pay a "wage tax" despite having no say in corrupt city government?

How about we just pass a blanket law that no government can tax anyone who can't vote for the officials of that government. Or, another way around, anywhere that you're taxed, you get a vote!

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Drdogface
Pat, I can't believe YOU said that..atta boy +1

In California, 35% blacks own their own home. In North Carolina it's 87%, don't know about South Carolina, but I'd expect it to be similar to NC.

Anecdotally, about 12 or so years ago I went to the local Chevy dealership in Hayward, CA where I lived at the time to check out a pickup truck. The sales manager, a black man in his mid to late 50's, went with me and we struck up a conversation because he was a fellow southerner. He had arrived in the Bay area via the Navy long ago and remained. I asked him how he liked it all those years, and he said, "well, I'm retiring in about a year and taking my wife and returning to Alabama where I grew up." I aked why, and he says, "well, I just barely got into a house here, I have 20 acres there, and will be building a retirement home on it." I said I understand, perfectly, and that was in fact the seeds for my relocation plans to here.

[Jim Richards]

Originally posted by RallyJon
And on the Jersey shore. They tax the crap out of non-resident homeowners who get no vote.

Or people who work in Philadelphia and have to pay a "wage tax" despite having no say in corrupt city government?

How about we just pass a blanket law that no government can tax anyone who can't vote for the officials of that government. Or, another way around, anywhere that you're taxed, you get a vote!

+1

I'm ready for DC representation in Congress, too.

[gaijindabe]

Originally posted by RallyJon
And on the Jersey shore. They tax the crap out of non-resident homeowners who get no vote.

They can vote - they just cant vote in two places and they choose not to. We have the same problem up-state NY - there are two tax rates (or rather assesments) one for locals and the other for outsiders. Back-ass appalachia and they are getting a taste for tax dollars.. Not good.

Actually, NYC has pretty residential low property tax. They are going up, but so is home ownership. Go figure.

The suburbs with much higher homw ownership (LI and NJ) have much, much higher property tax rates.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Jim Richards
I'm ready for DC representation in Congress, too.

Yeah, just as soon as they relocate the District to Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. Then the states that donated the land can have it back, take a wrecking ball to the government edifices their and return it to the swamp (though some say it's still a swamp).

[Jim Richards]

Pat, don't be ******* with my neighborhood, boy.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Jim Richards
Pat, don't be ******* with my neighborhood, boy.

That's "the people's neighborhood", and the people can do what they want with it, as originally intended.

The government really shouldn't have allowed residences to be built in it.

[Jim Richards]

Originally posted by fastpat
The government really shouldn't have allowed residences to be built in it.

Bummer, dude. I own property here in the District. I pay DC and Federal taxes. I only get to vote for the morons that, err, ahem, run our city. Less rights to representation in the federal gov't than you guys. This mid-term election is gonna be bittersweet as I won't have any say in how dissatisfied I am with the cadre of dicks down the street that are screwing up our country, and, to bring this back on topic, adding to the creeping dictatorship.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Jim Richards
Bummer, dude. I own property here in the District. I pay DC and Federal taxes. I only get to vote for the morons that, err, ahem, run our city. Less rights to representation in the federal gov't than you guys. This mid-term election is gonna be bittersweet as I won't have any say in how dissatisfied I am with the cadre of dicks down the street that are screwing up our country, and, to bring this back on topic, adding to the creeping dictatorship.

All true, and the same as it's been since, let's see, 1790-something.

My advice, sell, and buy something in Virginia. Then get your lawful firearms, and concealed carry permit, and access to a host of other intrinsic rights that the District has curtailed.