[Peace-discuss] emperor obama

["E. Wayne Johnson 朱稳森"]

"... nothing can stop me now, 'cause i'm the fuckin' duke of earl..."

Emperor Obama
by Sheldon Richman
We were warned. “Who can deny but the president general will be a king 
to all intents and
purposes, and one of the most dangerous kind too; a king elected to 
command a standing army....
The President- general, who is to be our king after this government is 
established, is vested with
powers exceeding those of the most despotic monarch we know of in modern 
times.... I challenge
the politicians of the whole continent to find in any period of history 
a monarch more
absolute....”
That was written by Benjamin Workman under the penname 
“Philadelphiensis,” one of
the Anti-Federalists who warned in 1787-88 that the proposed 
Constitution would centralize
power to an appalling degree, particularly in the executive branch.
Now here’s President Barack Obama defending his unilateral military 
intervention in the
civil war raging in Libya (emphasis added):
“Confronted by this brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis, 
I ordered
warships into the Mediterranean. European allies declared their 
willingness to commit resources
to stop the killing.... [At] my direction, America led an effort with 
our allies at the United Nations
Security Council to pass a historic resolution that authorized a no-fly 
zone to stop the regime’s
attacks from the air, and further authorized all necessary measures to 
protect the Libyan people....
We knew that if we wanted — if we waited one more day — Benghazi, a city 
nearly the size of
Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across 
the region and stained the
conscience of the world.... I refused to let that happen. And so nine 
days ago, after consulting the
bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop 
the killing and enforce UN
Security Council Resolution 1973.... [As] President, I refused to wait 
for the images of slaughter
and mass graves before taking action.... Of course, there is no question 
that Libya — and the world
— would be better off with Qaddafi out of power. I, along with many 
other world leaders, have
embraced that goal.... The task that I assigned our forces — to protect 
the Libyan people from
immediate danger, and to establish a no-fly zone — carries with it a UN 
mandate and
international support.”
You see no reference to a congressional declaration of war or the 
Constitution.
Philadelphiensis and his compatriots would not have been surprised. They 
saw early on that it
wouldn’t take much for a president to become an emperor.
Obama continued: “I’ve made it clear that I will never hesitate to use 
our military swiftly,
decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our 
homeland, our allies, and
our core interests.... But let us also remember that for generations, we 
have done the hard work of
protecting our own people, as well as millions around the globe. We have 
done so because we
know that our own future is safer, our own future is brighter, if more 
of mankind can live with the
bright light of freedom and dignity” (emphasis added).
There in a nutshell is the imperial premise: Our future depends on the 
condition of the rest
of mankind. Therefore, the president may bomb or invade anywhere he 
likes as long as he
believes intervention is feasible. And as long as he can get the 
U.S.-dominated NATO and UN
Security Council on board. (NATO, incidentally, was never established 
for such a purpose.)
Obama’s touted “coalition” is cold comfort to those who realize that 
freedom and fiscal
moderation at home are jeopardized by a government run amok in the world.
Once upon a time, people actually believed that a president could not 
constitutionally
commit troops abroad without a declaration of war by Congress. With some 
exceptions, that belief
held presidents in check for a while. But it passed away sometime after 
1942, and since then
presidents have gone to war — big-time and small — whenever they damn 
well pleased. Congress
has simply been too timid to assert itself against imperial presidents. 
After the undeclared
Vietnam war disaster, a War Powers Resolution was passed in an attempt 
to limit future
presidents, but it was a pale substitute for the war-declaration 
requirement — and besides,
cowardly Congresses have never pushed to enforce the resolution.
The Anti-Federalists saw it coming. We can’t say we weren’t warned.

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, 
author of Tethered
Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman 
magazine. Visit his blog
“Free Association” at www.sheldonrichman.com.
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