Unfortunately, the US has been under ‘national emergency’ since September 14, 2001. In 1974, a Senate Committee revealed the US had been under national emergency since 1933 and were currently under 4 different Presidentially declared states of emergency. Thus, martial law could be declared anytime.
Jim Powell wrote the following article for Forbes.com
President Obama has made clear that he’s determined to continue pushing his “progressive” agenda, regardless of constitutional limitations on his power. He aims to have his way by issuing more and more executive orders.
The most ominous sign of possible things to come appeared on March 16, 2012, when President Obama signed executive order 13603 about “National Defense Resources Preparedness.”
This 10-page document is a blueprint for a federal takeover of the economy that would dwarf the looming Obamacare takeover of the health insurance business. Specifically, Obama’s plan involves seizing control of:
- “All commodities and products that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals”
- “All forms of energy”
- “All forms of civil transportation”
- “All usable water from all sources”
- “Health resources – drugs, biological products, medical devices, materials, facilities, health supplies, services and equipment”
- Forced labor ( or “induction” as the executive order delicately refers to military conscription)
Moreover, federal officials would “issue regulations to prioritize and allocate resources.”
Each government bureaucracy “shall act as necessary and appropriate.”
To be sure, much of this language has appeared in national security executive orders that previous presidents have issued periodically since the beginning of the Cold War.
But more than previous national security executive orders, Obama’s 13603 seems to describe a potentially totalitarian regime obsessed with control over everything. Obama’s executive order makes no effort to justify the destruction of liberty, no effort to explain how amassing totalitarian control would enable government to deal effectively with cyber sabotage, suicide bombings, chemical warfare, nuclear missiles or other possible threats. It’s quite likely there would be greater difficulty responding to threats, since totalitarian regimes suffer from economic chaos, colossal waste, massive corruption and bureaucratic infighting that are inevitable consequences of extreme centralization. Such problems plagued fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, communist China and other regimes. Totalitarian control would probably trigger resistance movements and underground networks like those that developed in Western Europe during the Nazi occupation. Totalitarian control could provoke more political turmoil than there was in the Vietnam War era of the 1960s. There would probably be a serious brain drain as talented people with critical skills escaped to freedom wherever that might be. Canada?
There’s nothing in executive order 13603 about upholding the Constitution or protecting civil liberties.
Obama’s executive order seems to assume that the next war will be like World War II or World War I, where vast armies of unskilled conscripts went at each other. But current trends suggest that future conflicts are more likely to involve smaller numbers of military personnel – highly-trained professionals, perhaps thousands of miles away from a battlefield, who remotely-control drones, pilotless combat helicopters, unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned ships, mobile security robots and related military technologies.
If you like your food, you can’t keep it
The order directs various federal agencies and government officials to “identify requirements for the full spectrum of emergencies, including essential military and civilian demand,” and “assess on an ongoing basis the capability of the domestic industrial and technological base to satisfy requirements in peacetime and times of national emergency, specifically evaluating the availability of the most critical resource and production sources, including subcontractors and suppliers, materials, skilled labor, and professional and technical personnel.”
In addition, the order directs government agencies “to take actions necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements.”
The order is specifically directed at the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security, as well as the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, the latter two which are advisory bodies to the Executive branch. But several other Cabinet-level agencies, including the Energy Department and, importantly, the Department of Agriculture.
The need for government to not only ensure its functionality but also its survival during a time of emergency is understandable; all governments do this. But the timing of the order – as well as the motivation for issuing it – is what remains suspect.
Radio personality Dave Hodges, in a blog post, particularly noted the order’s emphasis on the confiscation of all “food resources,” which are defined in the order as “all commodities and products, (simple, mixed, or compound), or complements to such commodities or products, that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals, irrespective of other uses to which such commodities or products may be put…“
Acquire storable food ‘off the grid?’
In addition, he notes, “food resources” includes “all potable water” and every imaginable agricultural product.
What is disturbing, he writes, is the order’s potential implication for anyone who is storing food in their homes or in special locations for consumption in the event of an emergency. The order – and indeed, the 1950 act – appear to grant the government such authority.
Also, Hodges notes, way back in 2008, before Barack Obama was elected to his first term, the Bush administration began mass purchases of storable foods, something that alarmed food sellers at the time.
It’s not clear what enforcement mechanisms would be employed by the administration should the president declare a national emergency and order stockpiled food confiscated, but such a scenario is unsettling on many levels. Not only would families be disrupted and immediately dependent upon federal, state and local agencies for subsidence, but there very likely would be violence directed toward any government agency or military unit instructed to confiscate private food stores.
Some have suggested bartering or using cash as ways to acquire storable foods “off the grid,” so as not to flag yourself like you would with any purchases using debit or credit cards.
Even if Obama’s 13603 were no different than previous national security executive orders, it’s more worrisome because it was issued by the president who rammed Obamacare and runaway spending bills through Congress, who racked up $5 trillion of debt and surrounded himself with hardcore “progressives” hostile to the private sector and America as we have known it.
In what circumstances, one might ask, would a president try to carry out this audacious plan?
Executive order 13603 says with ominous ambiguity: during “the full spectrum of emergencies.”
Well, the United States is already in a state of national emergency declared by President George W. Bush on September 14, 2001 and extended last year by President Obama.
To better understand the potentially explosive impact of his plan, let’s take a tour through the dark world of executive orders, a type of presidential power that most people know little, if anything, about.
Many presidents have pushed to expand their power beyond constitutional limits, particularly during crises. Issuing executive orders is the easiest way to do it. A president doesn’t have to propose an executive order, debate the issues, endure hearings or solicit votes. An executive order can be issued in a few minutes — behind closed doors and away from bright lights.
An executive order may be about all sorts of things large and small.
Paul Begala, who was an advisor to President Bill Clinton, reportedly remarked, “Stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool.”
What about the Constitution? It describes presidential power broadly. There isn’t anything in the Constitution that authorizes an executive order or limits what a president can do with it.
Executive orders arise from “implied constitutional and statutory authority,” the Congressional Research Service reported. “If issued under a valid claim of authority and published in the Federal Register, executive orders may have the force and effect of law.”
The Supreme Court tried to establish some limitations. It asserted the principle that an executive order (1) “must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself” and (2) “an executive order must not be “incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress.”
Very few of the thousands of executive orders have ever been challenged legally.
Members of Congress don’t always seem to know much about them. At one point, for example, they were shocked to discover that there were executive orders providing the president with enormous standby powers that could be implemented on a moment’s notice.
Sometimes a president issued executive orders to bypass Congress when his party didn’t control it. But Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued more executive orders than any other president, starting in his early years when he was most popular. Often executive orders seemed to have been issued because a president was in a hurry – and often there were unfortunate consequences. An executive order isn’t a reliable cure for any serious problem.
Executive orders go back to the beginning of our country, although they weren’t called that. Usually they were referred to as proclamations.
Until the early 20th century, executive orders were generally undocumented. They were addressed to a particular government agency which had the only copy. Nobody seemed to know how many executive orders there were. As late as the 1930s, there was an account, published in the New York Times, claiming that “there are no readily available means of ascertaining the true texts and history of the thousand or more executive orders issued since March 4, 1933.”
In 1907, the State Department began compiling and numbering executive orders going back to one that Abraham Lincoln issued on October 20, 1862. That became known as executive order 1. As I write, the most recent is Obama’s executive order 13603.
President George Washington’s first proclamation was on October 3, 1789. He said, “Both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving.” So, this was authorized by Congress.
Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation wasn’t authorized by Congress. Issued on April 22, 1793, it declared that the United States would be neutral in the war between France and Great Britain, which had begun two months before. Members of Washington’s cabinet, including Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, agreed that the United States was too fragile to become involved in another war.
Abraham Lincoln expanded presidential powers via proclamations and executive orders. He did this in the name of suppressing rebellion rather than waging war, since the Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war.
Lincoln famously suspended habeas corpus, the legal action that requires a prisoner to be set free if authorities don’t file charges promptly and proceed to a jury trial, so the accused can have an opportunity to prove innocence.
In April 1861, a Maryland militia officer named John Merryman was arrested and detained at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. He was said to have damaged Union facilities and trained Confederate soldiers. His lawyer obtained a writ of habeas corpus from Chief Justice Roger B. Tawney who directed George Cadwalader, the commander at Fort McHenry, to produce Merryman and explain the facts and the legal basis for detention. Cadwalader refused, saying that Lincoln had suspended habeas corpus. Tawney cited him for contempt, but a marshal couldn’t enter the fort to deliver the contempt citation. Tawney wrote what became known as the Ex Parte Merryman opinion, saying, in part, that “If the authority which the Constitution has confided to the judiciary department may upon any pretext be usurped by the military power, the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws.”
Lincoln went to Congress, offered an uncertain defense of his action and expressed the hope that Congress would “ratify” his action. Pulitzer Prize winning historian Mark E. Neely, Jr. noted that “the president seemed to agree that the legislative branch was the proper body to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.” On September 24, 1862, Lincoln issued a proclamation officially suspending habeas corpus, which meant that the government could detain people indefinitely. Lincoln “managed the home front, in part,” Neely wrote, “by means of military arrests of civilians – thousands and thousands of them.”
Lincoln had issued executive orders expanding the amount of Union territory subject to military control, particularly southern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio where “copperheads” were operating. In 1864, the Union army arrested Lambdin Milligan and four others in southern Indiana. They were charged with plotting to free Confederate prisoners-of-war. A military court sentenced the men to death, but they appealed for their constitutional right to habeas corpus. After the Civil War, in 1866, the Supreme Court noted that Indiana wasn’t under attack, and civilian courts were functioning, so Milligan and the others were entitled to a jury trial there. Justice David Davis wrote: “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of protection all classes of men, at all times, in all circumstances.”
Historian James G. Randall reflected, “No president has carried the power of presidential edict and executive order – independently of Congress – so far as [Lincoln] did. It would not be easy to state what Lincoln conceived to be the limit of his powers.”
Lincoln’s best-known executive order was the Emancipation Proclamation. He hoped to provoke a slave revolt in the Confederacy and make it easier for the Union to win the Civil War. Accordingly, on September 22, 1862, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It applied to any state that didn’t return to the Union by January 1, 1863. No states returned. At that point, Lincoln issued the historic Emancipation Proclamation. It applied to slaves in the Confederacy – territory that the Union didn’t control. It neither abolished slavery nor extended citizenship to former slaves, but it did make the abolition of slavery a war aim.
The peacetime expansion of federal power began with Theodore Roosevelt who issued 1,006 executive orders, more than any previous president. They performed a wide range of administrative functions, especially the disposition of government-owned land.
TR emphatically rejected the view that “what was necessary for the nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it…it was not only [the president’s] right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws.”
TR also said: “I think [the presidency] should be a very powerful office, and I think the President should be a very strong man who uses without hesitation every power the position yields.” He continued, “I believe in a strong executive. I believe in power.”
According to biographer Henry Pringle, “It seldom occurred to Roosevelt that the duty of the executive was to carry out the mandates of the legislative. In so far as he was able, he reversed the theory. Congress, he felt, must obey the president.” He wanted the Supreme Court to obey him, too. Roosevelt acknowledged, “I did greatly broaden the use of executive power.”
At times, TR seemed drunk with power, as when he remarked: “I don’t think that any harm comes from the concentration of power in one man’s hands.”
Woodrow Wilson issued 1,791 executive orders. For instance, executive order 1810 (August 7, 1913) prohibited anyone from operating a flying machine or balloon across the Panama Canal Zone. Wilson issued executive order 1860 (November 11, 1913) to dictate interest rates for the Canal Zone – a surprising number of Wilson’s executive orders had to do with administering that little territory.
Most of Wilson’s executive orders were issued during World War I. For instance, on April 14, 1917, he issued executive order 2594 to establish the Committee on Public Information – war propaganda. On April 28th, he issued executive order 2604 for censorship of messages sent via the trans-Atlantic cables. Executive order 2679-A (August 10, 1917) established the Food Administration. Executive order 2697 (September 7, 1917) required that anyone wishing to export coins, bullion or currency must file an application in triplicate with the nearest Federal Reserve bank. Executive order 2736 (October 23, 1917) authorized Food Administrator Herbert Hoover to requisition food. Executive order 2953 (September 12, 1918) authorized the sale of property seized in accordance with the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Franklin D. Roosevelt issued 3,723 executive orders. In his Inaugural Address, he said: “I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the [depression] crisis – broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”
On March 6, 1933, FDR issued Proclamation 2029 that cited Wilson’s Trading with the Enemy Act to justify ordering banks closed for a National Bank Holiday.
FDR sent his Emergency Banking bill to the House of Representatives, and it was passed after only 38 minutes of debate – apparently without members reading it.
In 1933, FDR issued executive order 6102 that made it illegal for Americans to own gold bullion or gold certificates, even though historically gold provided the best protection against inflation and monetary crises. Violators faced the prospect of a fine up to $10,000 or up to 10 years in prison.
Since economic fascism was popular during the early 1930s, FDR issued executive orders to suspend antitrust laws and establish German-style cartels in dozens of industries, restricting total industry output, allocating market shares and fixing above‑market wages and prices. Above‑market wages discouraged employers from hiring, and above-market prices discouraged consumers from buying. Among these executive orders:
- 6204-A, for the rayon weaving industry
- 6205-C, for the silk manufacturing industry
- 6216, for the ship building and ship repairing industries
- 6242-B, for electrical manufacturing
- 6248, for the corset and brassiere industries
- 6250, for theaters
- 6253, for the fishing tackle industry
- 6254, for the iron and steel industries
- 6255, was for the forest products industry
- 6256, was for the petroleum industry
- 6543-A, for the drapery and upholstery industries
With executive orders, FDR multiplied the number of government bureaucracies. He established the Civilian Conservation Corps by issuing executive order 6101. The Public Works Administration followed with executive order 6174. Then came these executive orders:
- 6225, the Central Statistical Board
- 6340, the Commodity Credit Corporation
- 6420-B, the Civil Works Administration
- 6433-A, the National Emergency Council
- 6470, the Public Works Emergency Housing Corporation
- 6474, the Federal Alcohol Control Administration
- 6514, the Electric Home and Farm Authority
- 6581, the Export-Import Bank of Washington
- 6623, the Federal Employment Stabilization Office
- 6632, the National Recovery Review Board
- 6770, the Industrial Emergency Committee
- 6777, the National Resources Board
- 7027, the Resettlement Administration
- 7034, the Works Progress Administration
As one reflects on FDR’s New Deal executive orders, one thing seems clear: while some of the programs provided relief for desperate people, they failed to achieve a sustained revival of private sector job creation. Indeed, relief spending was the main reason government spending doubled and taxes tripled during the New Deal era (1933-1940). Where did the tax revenue come from? The biggest source of federal revenue was the federal excise tax on cigarettes, beer, soda, chewing gum and other cheap pleasures consumed disproportionately by poor and middle income people. This means the cost of relief programs for poor and middle income people was borne mainly by poor and middle income people. In May 1939, FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau lamented, “We are spending more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. After eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when he started.”
New Deal unemployment averaged 17 percent, and it didn’t go down significantly until the government began removing more than 10 million men from the civilian work force via military conscription for World War II.
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