Do we now live in a Dictatorship?

[johnaries]

Poll question: Do we now live in a Dictatorship?

(3) INTERPRETATION BY THE PRESIDENT- (A) As provided by the Constitution and by this section, the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and to promulgate higher standards and administrative regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

Does this along with Bush's authority to define an "enemy combatant" and suspend habeus corpus mean that the "Unitary Executive" is now officially a dictator?

[MnFats]

1. yes, pretty much. in addition to the facts of Congress; action

...today, the message has gone out that the president or his subordinates can do about whatever they want to do. They can get away with murder. i do not use that phrase for hyperbole, I mean it literally.

[radfringe]

15. with congress no more than a rubberstamp display

in a storefront window... yes, essentially we now have a dictatorship

http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1451

Eric Brewer): "But isn’t it the Supreme Court that’s supposed to decide whether laws are unconstitutional or not?"

(Tony Snow): "No, as a matter of fact the president has an obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is an obligation that presidents have enacted through signing statements going back to Jefferson. So, while the Supreme Court can be an arbiter of the Constitution, the fact is the President is the one, the only person who, by the Constitution, is given the responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend that document, so it is perfectly consistent with presidential authority under the Constitution itself."

[LynnTheDem]

26. tony snow is incorrect.

And bush is in violation (again) of the USC. That makes bush & his minions DOMESTIC ENEMIES. TRAITORS.

And that's just a fact.

[file83]

2. Technically speaking, we live in a Dumbfuckership...

...but let's not split hairs here.

[uppityperson]

3. kick

[Jack Rabbit]

4. When they shoot us in the street and round up our leaders

Then it is a dictatorship.

If the election in November is rigged, then it is a dictatorship.

If our backs are to the wall and there is no recourse but to man the barricades, then it is a dictatorship.

Be ready to deal with it. These times are not for the faint hearted.



Liberty Leading the People (1830) by Eugène Delacroix
From the website of the University of Southern California

[pitohui]

7. fighting the last war

they're far more sophisticated these days

why round up our leaders when they can just send them a poison powder and threaten not just them but their staff and family and then demonize them at will -- the fate of daschle might be a good example here

karl rove is many things but crude and ham-fisted he ain't

they don't shoot anyone in the streets, they accuse them of being a child molestor (scott ritter), they feed them ridiculous information and make them look ridiculous (we all know who), they send poison to their offices which sends the message of "it won't be you we kill, it will be your loyal staffers" knowing this is intolerable to honorable men...they have a thousand tricks and they're already using them

it is already a dictatorship, it was from the moment the supreme court awarded the office of the president to the loser aga. the will of the people and ruled the votes not be counted

it's a new world order and you can't expect the new fascism to look, exactly, like the old fascism

there need be no prisons for political objectors but there will be many, many prisons for drug and sex offenders -- there is a reason for stirring up such irrational hate against these despised classes -- you can discredit someone in an instant by saying he exchanged an email with a 13 year old

[pitohui]

5. we have been for some time

the minute a man not elected to office of president assumed that office anyway, we had a coup situation and an oligarchy situation, i think the situation has not changed in the slightest, we have an oligarchy with a figurehead

they were already torturing people, a piece of paper that says they can torture people doesn't make it right, it doesn't even make it legal, so fuck 'em

yeah, we live in a dictatorship

the piece of paper isn't the reason, altho it's shameful enough, their actions are the reason

[magellan]

6. Yes. Doesn't matter if the SCOTUS overturns it.

The SCOTUS doesn't represent us; Congress does. And the majority of our representatives support tyranny.

[autorank]

8. Well, you know I'll agree with this one -

We're in full tilt boogy tyrany...it's all over for freedom, liberty, and the illusion of American "exceptionalism." We're facing a major battle to regain the opportunity to change.

The first politician of major stature to call the Bush regime tyranical was Al Gore. Let us remember that around 2007. He is the man to deliver us from evil;)

[Swamp Rat]

10. It will get exponentially harder as the months roll by, especially after

today, to remove them from office.

These next two election cycles will seal our fate.

We MUST take back the Congress this November or else Al Gore will have to face a Goliath in 2007.

... and We The People must dedicate our lives to winning our government back from now on.

We must drop our petty differences on this board, and those with whom we come into contact on a daily basis.

Talk to everyone... everyday... about saving America.

:patriot: AL GORE 2008!!! :patriot:

[autorank]

13. We must indeed,..and we need to help Louisiana, New Orleans in

particular. Good on you for hanging in there...

[Swamp Rat]

14. It is very difficult here unless one is wealthy.

The temptation to leave the country is great since I have family on different continents and miss them very dearly. If I didn't have family here, I would likely be gone. After the way they punked us here in NOLA last year, I am ready to say fuck it! and leave for greener pastures... that's not under 10 feet of toxic water with Blackwater death squads roaming the streets at all hours.

I didn't have to come back here to help during the 2004 presidential election. I could have stayed in Brazil, my paradise, living in peace and tranquility next to a beautiful beach, where I can eat seafood everyday, play music all the time with talented and humble musicians, play samba in Carnival, go to soccer games and drink beer all night, and have GREAT sex anytime I want. Oba! :D

Americans better stand the fuck up these next two elections or else it's 'adeu' de mim, rapaz. If the nation is gonna be fucked, we'll be living in HELL here by comparison, as we already are to some degree.

[kster]

29. Lets hope the Goverment is pissing off the Military

because our Military can put a swift end to this bullshit. The Government can rewrite all the laws they want, they can be in control of the vote counting, but when our military says enough is enough.......... we know what WILL happen.

[meldroc]

9. Yep, we're in a full speed slide to tyranny.

And we've got a heck of a lot further to go before we hit bottom.

By the time we've hit bottom, I suspect the Stars and Stripes will become as reviled around the entire world as the swastika.

[deacon]

11. Yes, the GOP has brought us dictatorship, wrapped in the same

flowers that iraqi's greeted us with.

[raysr]

It was a big joke

when the motherfucker said that but it's not so funny now.("As long as I'm the Dicktater")

[SammyWinstonJack]

19. I didn't find it amusing AT ALL! Not then and certainly not now!

:grr:

[LaPera]

12. "As long as we're safe" Give it all up...

Our Civil rights, our once had freedoms..are we to accept their projected FEAR before we go to bed... And we can be sure, finally, they'll be no more threats...If not keep just giving in to the "terrorist". In so much as the republicans have convinced us they are behind every door?

Such bullshit!

[TheWatcher]

16. I'd love to hear from the cowardly twit

Who voted for #4.

[Justice Is Comin]

17. Somebody ought to crawl up there and

put a blindfold on Lady Liberty. She's only got one hand free and she shouldn't be subjected to have to see anything else after today.

[johnaries]

20. That actually gives me an idea for a cartoon I'd like to see.

A picture framed like the one of Saddam's statue being pulling down, except it's Congress pulling the Statue of Liberty down. Appropriate, don't you think?
Where's the DU cartoonists?

[Justice Is Comin]

23. That would be a fabulous depiction.

Whoo that would rile some feathers.

Pefect, good idea. :thumbsup:

[johnaries]

18. Kick for the day crowd. I want your opinions, too.

[IA_Seth]

21. Hyperbole at it's finest.

While I'd agree that we are one step closer with this decision, we are still a ways away from a true dictatorship.

[Marie26]

22. No.

When you can't post this poll, then we're in a dictatorship. We are much closer today, though.

[Balbus]

24. As long as a message board like this exists...

You are nowhere close to being in a dictatorship.

[gordianot]

28. These message boards are useful to gather data.

They can figure out who we are and use that information to categorize us. DU and similar boards are in reality a huge confessional. I look forward to the day I admit (no need for a water board) I really believe what I wrote about the BFEE GOP Neo-Con scum.

[file83]

30. Not true - just because the dictator hasn't used his new found power yet

doesn't make him any less a dictator. Dictatorship isn't defined by the abuses or lack of freedoms- just the ability to abuse or take away freedoms without fear of reprieval.

[nam78_two]

25. kr/nt

[gordianot]

27. We are now an outlaw nation on the same footing as those we once loathed,

Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, North Korea, Maoist (Cutural Revolution era) China, etc..

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. Probably, but this will probably be the kind of dictatorship that

people don't notice unless they butt up against it directly.

My parents once asked a Latvian woman whether it had been worse under the Nazis or the Stalin's Soviet Union. She thought for a while and said that they had both been really bad and that she had lost friends to both. However, she said, for non-Jews, the Nazis appeared to be better because their rules were clear and consistently enforced, so those who chose not to resist mostly stayed out of trouble, and life went on pretty normally within those constraints.

However, the Soviets during the Stalinist era were more frightening, because they arrested people for any reason and no reason, took over all businesses and public institutions, and made a concerted effort to stem "bourgeois nationalism" (not wanting to be absorbed by a larger country) by deporting Latvians to other parts of the Soviet Union and bringing in so many Russians that the capital, Riga, soon became a majority-Russian city.

I think that if America becomes a dictatorship, it will become the Nazi type, in that the average American will go on driving to the office park, eating at family restaurants, working out at the gym, getting caught up in pro sports, and watching mindless TV. Unless they start objecting to some neocon plan that affects them directly, they won't even know that other people have disappeared, because the mass media sure won't tell them.

I keep coming back to the example of Argentina, which lost its democracy to a "war on terror." If you didn't personally know any of the "disappeared," your life went on as always.

[farmboxer]

32. King George is back! Looks like America has a King once again!

How could Congress be so damned stupid?!

[windbreeze]

33. Certainly the one vote for who cares as long as we're safe....

is a joke? it has to be a joke...couldn't be anything but a joke...right?
wb