09-23-2021, 08:22 PM
(09-22-2021, 07:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(09-18-2021, 12:11 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't think your regressive, reactionary militias are a match for the US army and national guard and police forces. Gen Milley made sure that you guys understand what's what. Even a Trumpist president will not be able to command the US army to go against the Constitution or attack the Capitol.
You don't believe in the Constitution or recognize or support the Constitution. You've been proving that to me for many years. What do you think I'm as dumb and ignorant as the typical blue voter these days. I've been proving that wrong for several years too. General Milley is an insecure pussy who earned the ribbons on chest by sitting at a desk in Washington shuffling papers and transferring orders. He's not a field commander, he's a bureaucrat who wears a uniform instead of a suit.
The Constitution precludes a despotic President. People who wrote it had written a Declaration of Independence that enumerated the wrongs of King George III; with that wisdom they defined the Presidency to give the President powers that a leader might need in a certifiable emergency... powers that would require the acquiescence of Congress. If one is Abraham Lincoln facing the Confederacy or FDR facing the demonic Axis Powers, then one gets the powers necessary for saving the Union. Someone criticizing the President in the exercise of his First Amendment rights is not the menace that Adolf Hitler or Hideki Tojo is... and should the Armed Services become servile to a political leader in enforcing his political will contrary to federal law including the Constitution then we have a dictatorship reminiscent of those of Hitler, Tojo... or Satan Hussein.
The President does not have the power to order someone killed unless the death of that that person (let us say Osama bin Laden) is unlikely to offend Congress. He does not have the power to demand funds, as Congress has control of the budget. The President is responsible for the Armed Services, but the Armed Services are not above the Law. The Uniform Code of Military Justice dictated how General Milley responded to the Capitol Putsch.
Remember, remember the Fifth of November... January 6 can become America's equivalent of Guy Fawkes Day in the UK.
Don't disparage the upper echelon of the Armed Services for being "bureaucratic". Bureaucracy can control behavior down the line. The military is obliged to obey lawful orders of the President -- but not unlawful orders such as war crimes and the overthrow of Constitutional protections.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.