Dictators typically act without the consent of elected officials. For example, Gaius Julius Caesar as Dictator for Life in Ancient Rome simply passed laws by himself whenever he couldn’t get the Senate to bow down to his wishes. One example: he canceled debts in what we would consider one of the first “cramdown” measures in history:
Upon his return to Rome after his victory at Pharsalus in 48 B.C., Julius Caesar found the country not only in political and social and moral disorder, but also in fiscal disorder. According to Michael Grant, writing in his book, The Twelve Caesars, one of the greatest problems of the age was the existence of numberless private debtors, victims of ancient laws that permitted money lenders to exploit debtors.
The problem was compounded by the hoarding of coins and by depreciation of land and property values. The debtors were not able to raise money by the sale of estates in order to discharge the principal of their debt, nor could they find means to pay interest which had become a great and permanent burden.
There was popular pressure for complete cancellation of all debt. Caesar proposed a compromise: Commissioners were appointed to appraise the value of debtors’ property as it stood prior to deflation. They were given the power to require creditors to accept those properties in payment of debts at their pre-war, pre-inflation value. The sum total of interest payments that had been made on a debt were deducted from the principal. Thus, if figured in U.S. money, a person who had paid $80,000 in interest on a debt of $100,000 would have a remaining obligation of only $20,000.
Of course, dictators throughout history have not always acted so benevolently. Stalin imprisoned, tortured and killed millions of his fellow citizens. Hitler first passed laws to take away most of the rights of Jews in Germany and ultimately organized the Holocaust to exterminate them in his “Final Solution.” Mao killed off rivals, killed dissidents, sent millions to re-education and labor camps, and killed millions more directly or indirectly as a result of his disastrous agricultural policies which led to widespread famines. The ruling military juntas in Argentina and Chile “disappeared” hundreds of thousands of those who either opposed or were suspected of opposing their regimes. Throughout history, dictators and tyrants have ruled by fiat, eliminating individual liberties and ignoring human rights whenever they determined it was in their interest to do so.
A number of prominent individuals on the right (and many less prominent) have alleged that President obama is leading us down the road to Fascism or Marxism or otherwise acting as a dictator. I think most of you know who I mean, but just for those who have been living in a cave the last few months, let me introduce you to Glenn Beck, resident alarmist and Loon-in-Chief at Fox News:
Not that he’s the only one. Republican politicians from Rep. Michelle Bachmann to Governor Rick Perry have asserted similar claims that the Federal Government under Obama is oppressive and tyrannical and needs to be opposed. The entire “tea bag” movement was an attempt to convince Americans that Obama and his policies are a threat to our Republic, one that should be resisted by all true patriots who love their country.
Yet, for a dictator, Fascist or Socialist or some other breed, it doesn’t appear Obama is doing a very good job of it. Unlike Julius Caesar, he wasn’t able to pass a modicum of debt relief for individuals. The so-called bankruptcy mortgage cramdown bill that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to modify existing mortgage loans to reduce payments based on the current value of the debtor’s home was killed off by Senators of his own party, even though Democrats control both houses of the legislature. He hasn’t “disappeared any of his political opponents, shut down their newspapers, their radio broadcasts or television programs, or otherwise arrested those who speak out against him. His Justice department even censored the DOJ attorneys who acted improperly in the trial of former republican senator Ted Stevens, hardly the sort of thing one would expect from a despot. So where does all this talk about Obama as the greatest danger to our nation come from, anyway?
Well, mostly from people who make their living promoting a radical conservative political agenda. The same people who applauded President Bush for his policies of detention without trial, his mass electronic surveillance program without court issued warrants, his arrests of protestors at his political events, his use of torture and elimination of the writ of habeas corpus, and his prosecution of an illegal war which he promoted with lies and falsehoods. In short, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck and a host of other conservative voices in the media. These demagogues and propagandists have convinced their gullible right wing audiences that Obama is the next Hitler or Mussolini or Mao in sheep’s clothing, ready to take away their guns, impose gay marriage on their children, outlaw Christianity, and wants to establish a “One World Government” thus taking away their precious freedoms.
Of course, there is no valid evidence for any of these claims. Indeed, Obama doesn’t even support gay marriage, has never advocated banning all guns, and has not to my knowledge ever suggested that right wing preachers should be outlawed or silenced even when they openly pronounce a message of hate against liberals, atheists, scientists and gay people to their congregations each week. Despite the poisonous rhetoric directed at him and his family he hasn’t taken the low road of calling his opponents traitors even when they have advocated secession from the Union or “revolution.”
Having a different political agenda and advocating different policies than the last, Republican administration doesn’t make you a dictator. I think conservatives were in power so long they forgot that their ideology and their political beliefs were not the only ones Americans were entitled to follow. In a democracy sometimes you lose. That doesn’t make the members of the winning party dictatorial when they try to pass legislation that accords with their core political beliefs. Trust me Republicans, you’ll know when a President is acting like a Dictator, breaking the law and claiming only the President can decide what’s right and what isn’t.
Oh wait. That’s already happened quite recently, hasn’t it? A President who decided he was above the law. One who believed that he could spy on his fellow citizens without court approval, imprison whomever he wished and ignore laws passed by Congress if he didn’t agree with them. A President who lied us into a disastrous war and used the government as an extension of his own political party. What was his name again? Well, I’m sure it will come to me. Maybe you know who I’m talking about, already.
America’s founding fathers set up a system of checks and balances to ensure that deliberation and debate would precede action. They made impulsive action very difficult because they believed that deliberation was essential to sound governance. And they also believed that any government’s actions should always be accountable, checkable, reversible and reasonable. This is why, in my judgment, the American constitution is such a conservative document: because it enshrines checks against absolute power, due process, deliberation and prudence at the core of democratic life.
This is the core conservatism that George W Bush and Dick Cheney, his vice-president, have systematically attacked for the past eight years – in favour of a de facto protectorate of one strong man. They believe it’s necessary to save us from terrorism. But they also believe the president of the United States is constrained by no law, no treaty and no constitution when he is defending the nation. Even when Congress has passed laws for presidential signature, Bush has attached provisos on many, saying he is not obliged to follow them when acting to defend the country. He has unilaterally suspended the Geneva conventions and unilaterally violated American law in sanctioning wire-tapping and torture. By any rational measure, he and Cheney have committed war crimes and their only defence is that they are above such laws and so incapable of committing any crimes in the defence of the nation.
The key area where this dictatorial impulse has been demonstrated has been the war on terror. But last week we saw the extension of the same kind of thinking to the economy. If Donald Rumsfeld was the unchecked executive of the war, then Henry Paulson has now been asked to be the Rumsfeld for the economy. The wrangling last week – including the disgraceful show-boating and drama of John McCain’s shambolic campaign – was therefore a brief glimmer of hope in a system increasingly controlled by unaccountable strong men.
Consider the parallels between the economic crisis and the terrorism crisis. After 9/11 we were told by Bush that there was no doubt that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and if we did not act immediately the consequences could be catastrophic. Trust me, he insisted, and many of us did. Last week he insisted that the American economy stood on the brink of disaster and that if we did not act immediately, the consequences would be catastrophic. Trust me, he insisted. Then he proposed that Paulson be given total unaccountable power to do whatever he wanted with a trillion dollars of taxpayers’ money.
In war and economic crisis Bush has insisted that there is no alternative to dictatorial rule. As he kept saying: “I’m the decider.” Notice the difference between a decider and a president. A president presides over a constitutional system and acts within his constitutional role to defend the country as commander-in-chief – but has no constitutional right to declare war, a right that is categorically awarded to the Congress in the constitution. A “decider” just does what he wants.
Bush and Cheney did not believe they even needed a congressional vote to go to war with Iraq. They demanded simple trust that they had the correct intelligence, the correct strategy and the correct analysis. The job of ordinary citizens was not to keep a beady eye on their government, not to subject its claims to scrutiny and scepticism. The job of citizens was to “go shopping” while the decider protected them from danger. Last week we saw that Bush had the same view about the economy. The people should simply hand over the reins of government to one man – giving him tools and money that no president has ever had in history before.
So, Republicans and conservative media mavens, please stop with the hissy fit. Obama isn’t a dictator. Not even close. To publicly proclaim that he is one is certainly your right under our Constitution, but it is a foolish, ridiculous and dangerous path to tread. The more you lie about him the less reasonable people will believe you represent a serious alternative to his policies, and the more unreasonable, irrational and unstable people will be encouraged to take matters into their own hands through acts of violence. The last time you made an all out effort to demonize a Democratic President we ended up with a Tim McVeigh and and Eric Rudolph, terrorists who killed their fellow Americans. We’ve already had deluded individuals attempt to massacre members of a “liberal” church, kill three policeman in Pittsburgh, and begin acquisition of the materials necessary to assemble a “dirty bomb.” The more you continue this campaign of lies and hateful rhetoric, the more you encourage these deluded individuals that violence is the only response to losing an election. Is that really what you want?
For all our sakes, I sincerely hope not.
