Mattis retiring

[CitizenBBN]

Really? it's going to be done under a law passed by Congress. Shredded? Shredded sounds like permanent damage to me. May not be what you mean but it sure sounds like some kind of irreparable harm.

If we can survive the Japanese internment and many other actions taken during wartime relatively unscathed Constitutionally, we'll survive this just fine.

I'm not for the level of executive power that has concentrated, and I'm REALLY not for the overall concentration of power in Washington, most of it in a lifetime non-elected bureaucracy that in reality has more control over our elected officials than they have over their "staff".

But since I have always seen the border issue as a foreign policy issue and not a domestic issue, I find this far less troubling. If he was sending troops and declaring an emergency and sweeping door to door to address the opiod crisis that would be a massive deal, but declaring an emergency at a border that is already patrolled by armed agents with the job of stopping people who are not US citizens from illegally entering the nation?

Well, that's not really much different than 3,478 times we've invaded some country on pure executive power without any consent from Congress is it? It's OK to send troops to Syria or Grenada or Bosnia to defend against foreign non US citizens, but sending them to the Rio Grande is a crisis?

I know most people, for reasons I don't really get, see this as a domestic issue. The only thing domestic about it is that once someone does circumvent our national security at the border they are in fact inside the US so physically it's domestic, but at the point of entry it's not clear to me that's domestic at all. And yes I know SCOTUS generally disagrees with me. That's OK, they miss every now and again.

But like everything else, I'll wait and see the actual policy. Trump blusters and paints with a roller sized brush, but in the end it's usually nothing nearly so radical that actually gets implemented.

Besides, like I said elsewhere, Trump is too blunt a tool to be a threat to institutions. That's now how they become undermined and perverted. With the US it will be with subtle, non-threatening moves that liberty and democracy disappear. Liberty is in fact all but gone from the lexicon of public debate, and "democracy" has become synonymous with tyranny of the majority. The principles for which the Constitution was created are all dying already, and Trump has nothing to do with it.

[CitizenBBN]

And yes the executive order, which Trump has used frequently, is a way to bypass Congress. It is not good. The imperial presidency always must be put in check.

Neither is Congress passing laws so vague that others have to draft more language to actually give them any weight at all.

We agree here. It's a complete dereliction of duty, but it's the only way to pass such huge amounts of regulations and implement such a vast bureaucracy. As you know all too well, no federal agency could really be very sizeable or get much done if they had to go to Congress for every procedure, every regulatory interpretation. They SHOULD have to, but if they did we'd have an old school limited government, and that's not what the politicians of this era want.

I'm not for wielding executive power like this either, but neither do I think this instance is the end all and be all of threats. Historically it pales in comparison, and the real threats are far more subtle, b/c they are winning people over, and this won't.

Don't worry. Liberty in this country won't go out in some totalitarian seizing of power. IT's going out already, and it's going out with thunderous applause.

[UKHistory]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.28b03bb294c5

As of today there is some confusion within the Administration regarding our Syria policy, but this article is a strong statement that coincides with my perspective.