At what point does a president become a dictator to be impeached?

By David McElroy · January 15, 2013

In 1933, the National Socialist Party had gained enough votes in the German parliament that Adolph Hitler won the post of chancellor. Because Germany didn’t have a winner-take-all system for a leader as we do, it wasn’t that sort of election. But Hitler gained power legitimately through the electoral system.

In the coming months, Hitler used every excuse he could to bully the Reichstag into passing laws giving him absolute power. In other words, Hitler used the legal political system to gain power. His goons certainly did work behind the scenes that was illegal, in order to scare Germans into believing they needed him, but the correct legal authorities gave him power.

At what point did Hitler go from being a popular and democratically elected politician to being a dictator? Is there really a difference?

From the early days of the country, U.S. presidents have used so-called “executive orders” to do things which Congress hadn’t specifically authorized. Some of those things were benign and followed directly with the intent of Congress. In other cases, presidents seized powers that they absolutely didn’t have. For instance, Franklin Roosevelt issues an executive order giving power to the military to round up Americans whose ancestry was Japanese. There was no legal authority for this. He simply did it. And nobody stopped him.

Was he a dictator? In what ways do the unilateral actions of a U.S. president differ from the unilateral, dictatorial actions of Hitler?

On Wednesday, we expect to see Barack Obama issue executive orders which are aimed at preventing you and me from owning weapons which he doesn’t approve of. He plans to surround himself with children from across the country; in a disgusting display of dishonesty and cynicism, he’s going to pretend that he’s taking these actions because these children have asked him to make them safe. (As far as I know, he has no plans to ban the automobiles and bathtubs which are far more of a danger to them statistically, but that’s another matter.)

Congress hasn’t granted Obama the power to take these actions. He’s seizing authority and betting that he can force politicians to accept the changes by getting enough of the public on his side. That’s the political gamesmanship involved. But here’s the real question. When do we decide that a president has disobeyed his oath of office and violated the clear intent of our legal system by taking actions which are illegal?

When do we decide that a president has become a dictator?

For many decades, presidents have done things such as this and politicians have sat idly by, ignoring the fact that there was no authority for what he was doing. Is that going to happen again? Is there anything that our supposed representatives won’t sit still for now? Is there any point at which politicians will say, “Hold on. Our system doesn’t allow you to do that”?

As you know, I believe the entire coercive state needs to fall. The evil of majoritarianism needs to be recognized and individual rights respected instead. But for those who claim they favor “limited government” — whatever that really is — this is a litmus test. If you believe there are any limits on what a government can do, you have to respect the fact that only Congress can make law, especially when it’s contrary to the intent of the Second Amendment.

Barack Obama — along with every other U.S. president — has become a dictator. Yes, he was elected by a democratic system, but he’s seizing power with pieces of paper that claim to give him power to take our rights. In what way are his usurpations of our rights different from Adolph Hitler did?

We have a system of impeachment and removal for a reason. When a president engages in illegal actions, the system ought to be used. If you have any pretension of limited government, now is the time to stop the illegal dictatorship being run from the White House.

If you refuse to stop it simply because you don’t like guns and agree with Obama’s intent, how can you claim to support anything other than a dictatorship that you happen to agree with?

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I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

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