Howard Kveck wrote:
>
> I agree that FDR did a bunch of things that I think are unconstitutional.
> However, I do tend to give him a *little* bit of slack due to the fact that we were
> actually in an readily definable war. Doesn't it seem to you that Bush has taken a
> very wide open definition of war? "A war on terror" - terror is an abstract concept,
> not at all like, say, German and Japanese aggression. When I say "abstract", his
> definition of "war" is that he knows it when he sees it, and he'll know when it's
> over. But he can use or manipulate that decision any way he chooses to give himself
> the opportunity to tweak laws and the constitutional process in *his* favor. The
> main point of the article is that he's never vetoed a bill because he puts a
> "signing statement" onto each one that tells how *he* chooses to interpret it. He
> can publicly sign a bill that says (for example) tha he won't engage in torture, but
> privately add a signing statement that says he reserves the right to ignore what the
> bills states is law. He's done this almost 800 times since he took office. He's
> seriously broken the definition of how laws are done and how power is distributed in
> the American government by taking hte power of creating law away from Congress and
> the power of determining how those laws are interpreted by the Judiciary. This is,
> to say the least, completely antithetical to the intentions of the US constitution.
>
> --
> tanx,
> Howard
>
> Never take a tenant with a monkey.
>
> remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
Here's just a start on FDR:
http://www.apatheticvoter.com/ViolationsConstitution.htm
Quoted:
In the first 100 days of his administration, he took full advantage of
the fear in the American people and Democratically-controlled Congress.
With Congress willing to try any measures to resurrect the economy, he
used his newfound power to ram through passage of a series of measures
to prop up the fragile banking system, reform the stock market, provide
aid to the unemployed, and induce industrial and agricultural recovery.
During this period:
Roosevelt closed all banks for 4 days declaring a bank holiday so
Congress could develop a plan of action.
Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act to permit the Treasury
Department to inspect all banks before they would be allowed to reopen,
and to provide for Federal assistance to large institutions that were
bordering on bankruptcy.
The Economy Act was passed to balance the Federal budget by cutting the
salaries of government employees and reducing pensions to veterans by
as much as 15 percent.
The Agriculture Adjustment Act was passed to protect farmers from
market fluctuations through subsidies and production controls, the
forerunner of the huge farm subsidies we live with today. The
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) was created to manage the
effort. That initial organization is the father of the modern-day
Department of Agriculture with over 100,000 employees, but we don't
have any emergencies to deal with today of which I'm aware.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was created, including the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), an organization that
guarantees your bank deposits.
The most recognizable departments set up under the New Deal to relieve
the 15 million unemployed Americans were the Civilian Conservation
Corps (CCC), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), and the Federal
Emergency Relief Administration (FERA).
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created to manage flood
control, public electric power, and regional planning in that region.
Perhaps the most important measure that was enacted (if you are an
alcoholic) was the repeal of the XVIII Amendment prohibiting the
manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors. The XXI
Amendment was ratified in 1933.
The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) was passed to adopt an
anti-deflationary scheme that would permit trade associations to
cooperate in stabilizing prices within their industries. It guaranteed
to workers, among its many provisions, the right of collective
bargaining and helped spur large union organizing drives in major
industries. Under the NIRA, businesses were called on to accept a
minimum wage, maximum workweek and the abolition of child labor.
The NIRA subsequently created the Public Works Administration (PWA), a
major program of public works spending designed to alleviate
unemployment and to pump monies into the failing economy.
There was absolutely no constitutional basis for any of this
legislation. Roosevelt was able to hammer out this multitude of
legislation because: 1) the democratically controlled Congress
consisted of liberals and reformers, and 2) there was little resistance
from the normally conservative business community, as they were
desperate to find any means to achieve economic stability.
End Quote:
Lots more there and everywhere. Large portions of the violations and
illegal exoansion of the Governments powers were pre-war. You can argue
that this was justified, but Bush's supporters are arguing the same
thing, and Bush is doing nowhere near the far ranging extensive damage
done by FDR.
Then you can't even begin to compare Bush's violations of civil
liberties in scale to FDRs until we see Muslim and Arab American
citizens in large numbers having their property confiscated and being
relocated and locked up in internment camps. Having them demonized, at
all levels, by government paid for propaganda and Hollywood feature
movies etc...
Realistically Bush has better reason to violate civil liberties in the
monitoring of Americans and intel operations because, unlike FDR, we
don't know exactly who the enemy is, where they are, what small groups
are putting together terror operations, etc...Just the level of
uncertainty would seem to me to be a better excuse for the behavior.
That said, I don't think the danger rises anywhere near the level that
should allow this to happen. I do feel that we are in more danger here
in the continental US than we were in WW2. There was little to no real
danger of serious attacks on the continental US then, even the sabotage
was incredibly minor, as opposed to unconventional warfare and
terrorism both of which have a goal which is to cause as much fear as
possible by surprise attacks designed for psychological value. The
thinking has changed to make this type of warfare much more prevalent
since you NEVER have to defeat an enemy miltarily, just convince his
people it's not worth it anymore.
Which is much easier to do, and harder to combat.
In short my opinion is that FDR had lot less reason for what he did,
and did a lot more damage.
Most of my family older family disagree since they benefitted from a
lot of the programs, then especially getting into the war, since war
production massively expanded the need for coal and they were almost
all miners in Pennsylvania.
There are a fair amount of people who are convinced that his economic
policies were failing badly to bail us out, so, he was desperate to get
us into the war and bail out the economy that way. There's a fair
amount of evidence to back that theory, especially since he was using
US assets to provide intel on and target, especially subs, for
destruction by the British well prior to the US declaring war. We were
basically fighting an undeclared war long before Pearl Harbor, on both
fronts.
Bill C
To sum it up, Bush is terrible, FDR was FAR worse.