Temporary Dictatorship or Republic?

On May 4, 2007 (happens to be my birthday) President George W. Bush signed a bill called, Executive Directive 51. This is a bill that would have never been passed in the days of our founding fathers and would have in fact been a cause of a second revolution if so. This bill is not only unconstitutional but it is a subtle death nail to the constitution our forefathers created to protect our liberties. The first thing I would like to point out is the secrecy towards the American people during the passing of this bill. It was passed May 4, 2007 and he American people did not receive a chance to view it on the white house web page until May 9, 2007, almost a week after it was enacted. This presidential directive states it is necessary to enact certain included procedures to better the continuity of our federal government. This bill enables the president to declare a federal emergency which i defined and I quote from the bill, "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions." This definition is so broad that it does not give a clear definition of what the president is allowed to declare an emergency. It is very important for us to have a very clear and organized system to which declarations of federal emergency can be made because of what powers the bill contributes solely to the president, which I will discuss. So in any given case the president deems a federal emergency he has the power to declare it so. Now this sounds harmless unless you understand what powers are contributed to the sole ownership of the president in such a self-declared federal emergency. When the president declares a federal emergency he gains the control of the government and country and bypass any and all levels of government on a state, local, federal level, etc. This means the president coordinates the three levels of government(executive,legislative,and judicial) with the goal of supreme cooperation without the oversight of congress. So in a presidential declared federal emergency the president becomes a dictator. This violates the constitution and its ideal that no branch of the government is higher than the other and leaves us supremely vulnerable to corruption.

Now the argument for passing this bill is that in a time such as 9/11 or Katrina, for example, the U.S. was faced with an emergency that required a more continuative form of government to protect our national security. This is a time in which you need to contemplate which is more important to you security or liberty. Benjamin Franklin states,"Any society that will sacrifice an essential liberty for a little security deserves neither and will lose both." Acts and laws such as the patriot act are taking away our liberties in the name of security. Our country was founded not to police your liberties but to protect them and our biggest enemy of liberty in most cases is officials who value security over liberty ad do not have faith in the fact that the liberties and love of them will always guarantee our security. When we look to our founding fathers, they were not as cowardice in such areas. In fact they believed that the protection of liberty was much more important than the the protection of security, which they showed by risking their personal lives and the lives of their people by signing the declaration of independence. If we value our security over our liberty we are cowards and we leave ourselves, as a people, vulnerable to the same tactics used to overthrow German Parliament and instate the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. For if we look at history we see that the same manipulated idea of security over liberty is what made the German people demand dictatorship around WWII.

Its high time that we as Americans lose this cowardly and sometimes apathetic approach to dealing with our government. Its time that we realize as a majority that we the people hold the power and not our officials. we should be concerned that if we do not we will continue down a path of relinquishing essential powers to concentrated departments of government. The definition of a dictatorship is when one person controls the government and its people. My friends and fellow patriots what is different in our country in time of "Federal Emergency" compared to the definition that was given of a dictatorship. We are ignorantly living in a momentary or supposed temporary dictatorship anytime that the president declares federal emergency and we need to stop sitting idly by and do something about it.