Granting of Dictatorial Powers to the President--nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care

The Last Nail – Ron Paul’s Floor Speech May 25 2011

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From the speech . . .

The last nail is being driven into the coffin of the American Republic.

The rule of law is constantly rejected and authoritarian answers are offered as panaceas for all our problems. Characteristic of this epic event is the casual acceptance by the people and political leaders of the unitary presidency, which is equivalent to granting dictatorial powers to the President.

Our Presidents can now, on their own:

1. Order assassinations, including American citizens,
2. Operate secret military tribunals,
3. Engage in torture,
4. Enforce indefinite imprisonment without due process,
5. Order searches and seizures without proper warrants, gutting the 4th Amendment,
6. Ignore the 60 day rule for reporting to the Congress the nature of any military operations as required by the War Power Resolution,
7. Continue the Patriot Act abuses without oversight,
8. Wage war at will,
9. Treat all Americans as suspected terrorists at airports with TSA groping and nude x-raying.

And the Federal Reserve accommodates by counterfeiting the funds needed.

And all of this is not enough. The abuses and usurpations of the war power are soon to be codified in the National Defense Authorization Act now rapidly moving its way through the Congress. Instead of repealing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), as we should, now that bin Laden is dead and gone, Congress is planning to massively increase the war power of the President. Though an opportunity presents itself to end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Congress, with bipartisan support, obsesses on how to expand the unconstitutional war power the President already holds. The current proposal would allow a President to pursue war any time, any place, for any reason, without Congressional approval. Many believe this would even permit military activity against American suspects here at home.

The three major reasons for our Constitutional Convention were to:

1. Guarantee free trade and travel among the states.
2. Make gold and silver legal tender and abolish paper money.
3. Strictly limit the Executive Branch’s authority to pursue war without Congressional approval.

But today:

1. Federal Reserve notes are legal tender, gold and silver are illegal.
2. The Interstate Commerce Clause is used to regulate all commerce at the expense of free trade among the states.
3. And now the final nail is placed in the coffin of Congressional responsibility for the war power, delivering this power completely to the President—a sharp and huge blow to the concept of our Republic.

The saddest part of this tragedy is that all these horrible changes are being done in the name of patriotism and protecting freedom. They are justified by good intentions while believing the sacrifice of liberty is required for our safety.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

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We must recognize that in virtually every aspect of our life in every day, we can either be on the side of authoritarianism and the corporatocracy or on the side of anti-authoritarianism and democracy. (Source)

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10 Indications The United States Is a Dictatorship

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” — Lord Acton

Source: Activist Post

America has a history that is built upon the foundation of resistance to dictators. BUT . . .

We are entering a nebulous world where America has chosen an atmosphere of hate, suspicion, and vindictiveness.

1. Rule by force, not by law: Areas of society are now ruled top-down:

• Intimidation tactics, assassinations have begun of non-citizens, as well as U.S. citizens, in complete opposition to the laws of America and all international laws and agreements.
• Official elimination of the 4th Amendment, without due process and without recourse if later cleared; in fact, the Supreme Court has just ended the legal debate by refusing to even consider appeals.
• The militarized police, TSA groping, Child Protective Services kidnapping children of activists, public school surveillance, and detention of activists who videotape the police,
• Federal agencies such as the TSA actually believe they rule supreme over the states.

2. Crushing peaceful protest: Now activists have become targets.

• G20 protest in Pittsburgh,
• A recent Illinois University event, and
• The torture and incarceration of Bradley Manning.

3. Checkpoints: TSA is now forming a de facto internal passport system straight out of the totalitarian playbook.

• Checkpoints began first as border control operations, and morphed into local traffic stops across the country,
• VIPR teams have been introduced to take over public transportation and events.
• The No Ride List building upon the No Fly List.  These no-travel lists are extrajudicial, secret, and form a guilty-until-proven innocent framework that subverts freedom instead of protecting it.

4. Citizen spy network: Turns each of us into an unpaid tool of the police state.

• Under domestic policy America’s espionage network has turned inward.
• An East German Stasi inspired “See Something, Say Something” network has been openly introduced and populated into America—and empowered by providing Provide immunity for accusers “acting in good faith” while reporting suspicious activities.  This is guaranteed to lead to false arrests and disappearances.
• The web of cameras and data mining where we can now download apps to enable spying on our neighbors.
• Perfect Citizen programs.

5. Executive Orders:  Any time a country has centralized its power to the executive branch by erasing the checks and balances of separate legislative and judicial bodies, the result has been dictatorship. While it seems multi-layered with potential checks and balances, all directives can now be issued top-down in dictatorial fashion. The use of Executive Orders is increased:

• President Clinton who came under fire for his abuse of this power, becoming one of only two presidents (the other was Truman’s E.O. 12954) to have an Executive Order struck down by the courts.
• Clinton’s successors seem only to have been encouraged.
• One of Obama’s Executive Order orders is the ability to hold detainees indefinitely even after a court has found them not guilty.
• Executive Orders form the basis for control over regulatory agencies, which then impose the directives.   

6. Control of regulatory agencies: Dictatorship through regulation invades every facet of society without relying only upon overt violence.

• The FDA has brought in near-total food control.  The FDA is working in concert with a global agenda being foisted upon us through the Codex Alimentarius commission in Europe.
• A corporate-government “revolving door” leads to corruption and consolidation — not free markets.  Regulations favor those in positions to make money.

7. President declares war unilaterally: Through Executive Orders the President can declare war. Disregard for Congressional approval is dictatorial. This unilateral power to drag nations into war without checks and balances is a hallmark of dictatorships.

• A parade of lies led to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
• Obama’s illegal wars, new war in Libya, and other interventions and sanctions throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
• A permanent state of war controlled at the sole discretion of the current and future presidents.

8. Torture: The legalization of torture was what really brought the dreaded Russian secret police out into the open.  No nation that uses torture to obtain confessions can be called legitimate. It is only used as a tool of intimidation and oppression by totalitarian regimes.

• America uses torture.
• That torture doesn’t work is openly discussed in mainstream media, especially following the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
• Torture is not normal work for normal people; it is the work of psychopaths.
• Dick Cheney openly says waterboarding torture should be used more widely.

9. Forced labor camps (gulags): Gulags are a proven system of oppression. As Naomi Wolf has illustrated, this is when we know that a totalitarian society has arrived in full and society is run by coercion.

• America certainly has its gulag now–jails in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, of course, Guantánamo in Cuba, where detainees are abused, and kept indefinitely without trial and without access to the due process of the law.
• America’s prisoners are increasingly locked up within a for-profit prison-industrial system that makes money both on the construction of prisons as well as the cheap labor force–where Defense Department itself pays prisoners 23 cents per hour to build its weapons systems, which is clearly a type of slave labor.
• America has the world’s largest prison population and the highest incarceration rate precisely because nearly everything is a jail-time crime, and there is money to be made by the growing corporate prison system.
• Continuity of Government, national emergency directives would legally and openly suspend the Constitution and could possibly lead once again to internment camps (or FEMA camps) in America.

10. Control over all communications (propaganda):  There is clearly a concerted effort to take over all forms of information, permitting the government to alter it or censor it before consumption by its citizens.  In any other country we would call this a dictatorship.

• FCC voted to mandate EAS Now, with the arrival of the trackable smartphone that can be hijacked to bring government messages (emergency or not).
• The government has announced that the president will break into private networks to carry PLAN government messages and warnings; and there is no opt-out.
• As Infowars has reported: “All smart devices have federally-mandated control and kill switches added. This will give the government total control over incoming information to all smart phones regardless of manufacturer. These policies dovetail with the roll out of Smart Meters and the new Google controlled smart homes.
• The buildup in rhetoric leading toward Internet control.  As always, an unsavory element of society (pirating) has been used as one of the pretexts to introduce government control over private industry, while cybersecurity lays claim to total control over the infrastructure for national emergencies.
• Ideologically, Obama advisor, Cass Sunstein, has proposed a fairness doctrine for the Internet that would enable a government overlay on private websites that would offer counter opinions to anti-establishment content–a situation worse than China,
• The President made a shocking claim recently that he can censor unclassified documents.

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It is as if the whole system that we have known has turned into a lurching drunk, who is reeling across the landscape, acting out from the lowest common denominator of rage and acquisition fueled, intoxication. (Source)

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Who is Ron Paul?

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• Ron Paul ‘Last Nail’ Speech: Is This the End of the American Republic? (VIDEO & FULL TEXT) (blippitt.com)
• Obama’s Promise to Veto ‘Worldwide War’ Bill Rings Hollow (mountainrepublic.net)
• Obama Expects Bill For Total Dictatorship Power Over House And Senate (newsworldwide.wordpress.com)
• “Obama, in Europe, signs Patriot Act extension” and related posts (texasfred.net)
• 10 Indications The United States Is A Dictatorship (anationbeguiled.wordpress.com)

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