NationStates Jolt Archive

http://news.bostonherald.com/politics/view.bg?articleid=62564

My favorite part is how it defines an emergency: The circumstances include ``natural disaster, attack, contagion or similar calamity rendering Representatives incapable of attending the proceedings of the House.''

I've heard of similar things before, it's just that someone finally got around to passing it. But the way that they do it is a little hoky. All of the things that I've seen prior to this include the governors nominating new Representatives until an election can be held. That seems more reasonable to me.

http://news.bostonherald.com/politics/view.bg?articleid=62564

My favorite part is how it defines an emergency: The circumstances include ``natural disaster, attack, contagion or similar calamity rendering Representatives incapable of attending the proceedings of the House.''

Great now me and a couple of buddies can get elected to congress blow up the building and seize power!

You are soooo all going in the gulag.

Go us. Good to see our state legislature has got their priorities straight.

I've heard of similar things before, it's just that someone finally got around to passing it. But the way that they do it is a little hoky. All of the things that I've seen prior to this include the governors nominating new Representatives until an election can be held. That seems more reasonable to me.

Problem is, suppose a few members of the hard left or hard right are the only ones that make it there...

I guess you aren't familiar with the Executive Orders written concerning the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

If the President declares a national emergency, he can send people to your house, and commandeer it in the name of the emergency.

They can similarly take your car or other property as needed for the duration of the emergency.

They can also, if you possess certain useful skills (whether ditch digging or advanced mathematics), force you to work without pay for the government for the duration of the emergency.

Oh, and the President, under these emergency powers, can suspend the Constitution and the operation of the House and Senate.

And you thought the Patriot Act was bad. These things were written in the 1970s. And still as real as FEMA is today.

you should try living in UK,, were not citizens, were subjects..
we have no constitution, we have all the rights that the government of the day allow us.

These orders make scary reading. Most were implemented by Kennedy, and even some by Clinton.

You can read them yourself at:

http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/laworder.htm

John Ashcroft, by comparison, as well as the Patriot Act, were a weak reflection of these orders.

"The President has the power to seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, call reserve forces amounting to 2 1/2 million men to duty, institute martial law, seize and control all menas of transportation, regulate all private enterprise, restrict travel, and in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all Americans...

Most [of these laws] remain a a potential source of virtually unlimited power for a President should he choose to activate them. It is possible that some future President could exercise this vast authority in an attempt to place the United States under authoritarian rule.

While the danger of a dictatorship arising through legal means may seem remote to us today, recent history records Hitler seizing control through the use of the emergency powers provisions contained in the laws of the Weimar Republic."

--Joint Statement, Sens. Frank Church (D-ID) and Charles McMathias (R-MD) September 30, 1973

These orders make scary reading. Most were implemented by Kennedy, and even some by Clinton.

You can read them yourself at:

http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/laworder.htm

John Ashcroft, by comparison, as well as the Patriot Act, were a weak reflection of these orders.

"The President has the power to seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, call reserve forces amounting to 2 1/2 million men to duty, institute martial law, seize and control all menas of transportation, regulate all private enterprise, restrict travel, and in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all Americans...

Most [of these laws] remain a a potential source of virtually unlimited power for a President should he choose to activate them. It is possible that some future President could exercise this vast authority in an attempt to place the United States under authoritarian rule.

While the danger of a dictatorship arising through legal means may seem remote to us today, recent history records Hitler seizing control through the use of the emergency powers provisions contained in the laws of the Weimar Republic."

--Joint Statement, Sens. Frank Church (D-ID) and Charles McMathias (R-MD) September 30, 1973


Yeah, those orders are bad, but what was worse about the patriot act, is that it allowed FEMA type orders, without any declaration, it simply handed the powers over.

Thanks for the link though.