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Title: Donald Trump, Democratic Dictator
Source: The Future of Freedom Foundation
URL Source: https://www.fff.org/2019/08/26/dona ... -americas-democratic-dictator/
Published: Aug 26, 2019
Author: Jacob G. Hornberger
Post Date: 2019-08-28 10:16:06 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1243
Comments: 13

Some people think that the United States is safe from dictatorship because the country is a democracy. It’s only in totalitarian countries, they hold, that people are subject to dictatorship.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Such people are confusing how a ruler gets elected with the powers that the ruler has after being elected. A democratically elected ruler can wield and exercise dictatorial powers.

Case in point: President Donald Trump. He is the democratically elected president of the United States. He also wields and exercises dictatorial power over the American people.

The system of government that the Framers established with the Constitution provided for three branches of government — executive, legislative, and judicial. The Constitution delegated certain powers to each branch. The legislative branch was charged with enacting laws, including laws that imposed taxes on people. The executive branch was charged with enforcing the laws. The judicial branch was charged with interpreting the laws and, if need be, declaring them unconstitutional.

In a dictatorship, the dictator doesn’t have to concern himself with legislation or judicial interpretation. What he says goes. When he issues a dictate, it automatically becomes set in stone as the law.

Trump’s conduct in his trade war with China confirms how far the United States has gone in the direction of a democratically elected dictatorship.

Notice that Trump initiated his trade war all on his own, by unilaterally raising tariffs on products that are imported from China. He didn’t go to Congress and seek a law that raised tariffs. He just issued the dictate that raised tariffs. 

That is classic dictatorship. The ruler issues an order, which automatically becomes law. And keep in mind that a tariff is nothing more than a sales tax on foreign goods. The people who pay that tax are Americans who purchase Chinese goods. Therefore, under the dictatorial system under which modern-day Americans live, the democratically elected dictator wields the authority to levy whatever amounts of taxes he wishes to collect from the American people.

Over the weekend, the American people received another stark example of Trump’s dictatorial conduct. Angry over the fact that China hasn’t bowed to his demands and instead is retaliating with its own tariffs on American products, Trump declared, “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China including bringing …your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.”

That is an incredible command. Did you ever think live in a country where the ruler could issue orders to private individuals, as though they were in the army? A necessary feature of a free society is that people are required to answer only to duly enacted laws, not to arbitrary and capricious orders and dictates of their ruler. Trump clearly doesn’t get that. He thinks that because he is “commander in chief” of the armed forces, that makes him the commanding officer of the American people.

Congress isn’t innocent in this process, for it is Congress that has enacted laws delegating to the president the authority to issue these types of dictatorial decrees. The Framers, however, never intended for one branch of government to delegate its powers to another branch of government.

Where is the federal judiciary in all this? Isn’t it their job to declare laws that violate the Constitution unconstitutional. That’s the way it used to be. For example, in the 1935 case of A.L.A. Schechter v. United States, the Supreme Court declared the Franklin Roosevelt administration’s fascist National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional. The Court’s reason?

The law improperly delegated congressional power to enact laws to the president and, therefore, had to be declared unconstitutional.

So, why hasn’t the U.S. Supreme Court done the same with respect to the laws on which Trump is relying? Two reasons:

First, shortly after President Roosevelt came out with his infamous “court-packing” scheme, which would enable him to pack the Court with cronies who would uphold his socialist and fascist programs, the Court made it clear that it would never again interfere with congressional enactments relating to economic activity. The Court has followed that policy ever since.

Second, the laws on which Trump is relying enable the president to cite “national security,” the most important and meaningless term in the American political lexicon. All that Trump has to do to justify his dictatorial orders, decrees, edicts, and dictates is declare “‘National security is at stake.” At that point the issue is settled. That’s because after the federal government was converted to a national-security state after World War II, the Supreme Court made it crystal clear that it would never second-guess any action of the president, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA that is based on “national security.”

That’s how America has ended up with a democratically elected dictator. But hey, let’s look at the bright side: At least Trump is not as bad as Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the unelected conservative military dictator who the Pentagon and CIA installed into power in Chile back in the 1970s. Like Trump, he too loved issuing decree-laws, without interference from a legislature or judiciary.

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#1. To: Deckard (#0)

He didn’t go to Congress and seek a law that raised tariffs. He just issued the dictate that raised tariffs.

The last time Congress regulated tariffs it led to the Civil War. In 1934, Congress passed the Reciprocal Tariff Act ceding the power to the President.

They can take it back any time they want to, but more than likely they'll do what they did before -- use it to promote certain industries or regions in the U.S..

misterwhite  posted on  2019-08-28   10:45:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Deckard, misterwhite (#0) (Edited)

Nothing could be further from the truth. Such people are confusing how a ruler gets elected with the powers that the ruler has after being elected. A democratically elected ruler can wield and exercise dictatorial powers.

A trite and alarmist piece.

Every democracy that I know of has provisions for a president or prime minister to assume greatly enhanced war powers or to invoke martial law and the suspension of normal civil rights.

So in this sense, Franklin Roosevelt was a dictator. So was Abraham Lincoln. Arguably, you could include Woodrow Wilson too. Yet their powers were derived from democratic process with broad support at a time of national peril or unrest.

Tooconservative  posted on  2019-08-28   11:14:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: Deckard (#0)

President Donald Trump. He is the democratically elected president of the United States. He also wields and exercises dictatorial power over the American people.
You are once again posting another fearmongering article and spreading exaggerated claims.

Will your ever gain control over your “idiocracy”?

Try…

Gatlin  posted on  2019-08-28   11:26:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: misterwhite, Deckard, Hondo68 (#1)

The last time Congress regulated tariffs it led to the Civil War.

It wasn't tariffs at all. It was a huge tax increase in taxes that primarily would hit the slave states, essentially creating a tax windfall for Northern states at the expense of the South. Those in the North were (mostly) correct that the South had underpaid in taxes and evaded tax enforcement for some time. But it was the insistence on this huge tax increase that sparked the Civil War even if one could argue that it was competition from cheap labor by slaves that really aroused the most anger among voters in the North. It was never about freeing the slaves at all, nor was it about tariffs because no one was trying to import cotton to undercut the South's mainstay crop. Even the heartland of genuine antislavery sentiment in the North, Massachussetts, membership in abolitionist organizations never reached 2% of the population. So there were principled abolitionists but they were rarely heard and really had no political capital to speak of.

Lincoln did promise in his inaugural not only to respect the institution of slavery but also to support a constitutional amendment to strengthen slavery in perpetuity. That was the Corwin Amendment, designed to protect "domestic institutions" from any further attempts to amend the Constitution to ban slavery or to free those currently held as legal slaves or their descendants. You could never legally outlaw slavery by any means if it had passed.

So Lincoln had no objections to slavery really and certainly enjoyed spending summers vacationing at his in-laws' plantation being waited on by slaves. What Lincoln did promise in his inaugural was that as long as the South paid this greatly increased tax that was levied just prior to his election and which he adamantly supported, that no federal army would ever invade the South. This was, in effect, the spark that ignited the conflagration.

Slavery forever but pay these extortionate taxes now or we'll raise a federal army to invade the South. That was the gist of Lincoln's inaugural. The Civil War broke out in short order as a result, largely due to Lincoln's explicit threat to invade the South.

Surprising how little known these fundamental and easily understood facts are. Yet the historians and pols and textbook writers go to considerable lengths to conceal these most basic facts from the public, preferring to peddle fables to the gullible public, comparable to the myth of Geo. Washington chopping down the cherry tree and the hoary confession, "Father, I cannot tell a lie. It was I." A useful aphorism to promote the confession of misdeeds as a worthy character attribute but which has no basis in fact nor can any evidence be mustered for this Washingtonian fairy tale.

Tooconservative  posted on  2019-08-28   11:42:10 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Tooconservative (#4)

Protective Tariffs: The Primary Cause of the Civil War

https://www.marottaonmoney.com/protective-tariffs-the-primary-cause-of-the-civil civil-war/

misterwhite  posted on  2019-08-28   11:57:15 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: Deckard (#0)

Deckhand, you have the patience of Job! Sifting through all this propaganda to find something that fits within your anti-Trump agenda. I never heard of this one before and certainly wouldn't waste my time reading it.

Liberals are like Slinkys. They're good for nothing, but somehow they bring a smile to your face as you shove them down the stairs.

IbJensen  posted on  2019-08-28   12:21:18 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: misterwhite, Deckard, Hondo68 (#5)

https://www.marottaonmoney.com/protective-tariffs-the-primary-cause-of-the-civil civil-war/

You're simply promoting the pet historical theory of some wealth fund manager who craves public attention. And his idea is derivative, not original. It's derived from the historical perspective of my previous post.

Do you even realize that Marotta is actually supporting exactly what I posted above? What taxes did you think I was talking about above that would further disadvantage the South, taxes that Lincoln intended to collect at federal gunpoint with an invading army? IOW, Marotta is on my side of the argument. He just doesn't go far enough because he addresses only finances and taxes, not the political dimension that I presented as well. It was the combination that sparked the Civil War. Marotta's piece would actually fit in well at the Von Mises Institute's website except that it would be considered too unoriginal in scholarship.

It is amusing when your opponent ends up proving your own case while thinking they are somehow refuting it.

So thanks for the help. I accept your (unwitting) concession and your humiliation.


own goal

noun
(in soccer) a goal scored inadvertently when the ball is struck into the goal by a player on the defensive team.

Tooconservative  posted on  2019-08-28   12:25:31 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: Tooconservative (#7)

Do you even realize that Marotta is actually supporting exactly what I posted above?

Sure, if you're calling a tariff a tax.

misterwhite  posted on  2019-08-28   12:35:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: misterwhite, Deckard, Hondo68 (#8) (Edited)

Sure, if you're calling a tariff a tax.

Oh. Well, why don't we consult your own cited expert source, Marotta, on whether a tariff is a tax or not? Fair enough?

...

If the tariff is high enough, even an inefficient domestic company can compete with a vastly superior foreign company. It is the industry’s consumers who ultimately pay this tax and the industry’s producers who benefit in profits.

As early as the Revolutionary War, the South primarily produced cotton, rice, sugar, indigo and tobacco. The North purchased these raw materials and turned them into manufactured goods. By 1828, foreign manufactured goods faced high import taxes. Foreign raw materials, however, were free of tariffs.

...

With most of the tariff revenue collected in the South and then spent in the North, the South rightly felt exploited. At the time, 90% of the federal government’s annual revenue came from these taxes on imports.

...

With most of the tariff revenue collected in the South and then spent in the North, the South rightly felt exploited. At the time, 90% of the federal government’s annual revenue came from these taxes on imports.

...

Perhaps you should write to Mr. Marotta and explain to him that a tariff is not a tax and that he should re-write his article. I think he'd really enjoy that; it would make his day.

When you're standing in a hole, you really should stop digging. Stop trying to play word games when you clearly don't grasp what the words actually mean.

tariff

noun
a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports.
  • a list of taxes on imports or exports.

Tooconservative  posted on  2019-08-28   12:58:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: Tooconservative (#9)

I've posted before that a tariff is a specific tax. My understanding is not the issue here. YOU'RE the one claiming that Congress imposed taxes on the South because they weren't paying their share.

("It wasn't tariffs at all. It was a huge tax increase in taxes that primarily would hit the slave states, essentially creating a tax windfall for Northern states at the expense of the South.")

So, what were you referring to?

misterwhite  posted on  2019-08-28   14:53:08 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: misterwhite (#10)

I said: "It was a huge tax increase in taxes that primarily would hit the slave states, essentially creating a tax windfall for Northern states at the expense of the South. Those in the North were (mostly) correct that the South had underpaid in taxes and evaded tax enforcement for some time."

I referred to a "huge tax increase" that created "a tax windfall for Northern states at the expense of the South." I also suggested, in line with the best scholarship, that the South had underpaid the previous tariff and had evaded tax enforcement of the existing tax (prior to the North raising those same taxes through the roof). As I recall from memory, the North was bent on tripling a tax that was already perceived as unfair.

The North mostly did this to fund the building of bridges and roads and canals, most of which somehow ended up getting built in the North along with most federal facilities. So the South didn't even get federal jobs or facilities in return for paying for them.

At any rate, your quoted source did agree with me with some caveats.

If you want to see a variety of views on the economic justice of the issue, you could look at Von Mises website. They have a number of papers on the subject.

Here's an excerpt from a 2014 Thomas Woods review of Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War by Robert B. Ekelund, Jr. and Mark Thornton:

. . .

Thornton and Ekelund correctly point out that “the tariff became the single most important domestic economic issue prior to the Civil War” (p. 10), and was “a major factor in the coming of the Civil War” (p. 19). They make their point with a chart showing that the tariff accounted for 95 percent of all federal tax revenues in 1860s. This is undoubtedly why Abraham Lincoln announced to a Pittsburgh audience some two weeks before being inaugurated as president that “the tariff is to government what bread is to the family.” He said this while making a stump speech in favor of the Morrill Tariff, which roughly doubled the average tariff rate just days before he took office. (He would eventually sign several other tariff bills that raised the average rate to almost 50 percent).

The North/South split over the tariff began with the tariff increase of 1824, sponsored by Lincoln’s political idol, Whig party leader Henry Clay. Thornton and Ekelund point out that of 209 U.S. House of Representatives votes, only three southern congressmen voted for the Clay tariff of 1824. Of 46 senate votes, only two yes votes came from southern senators. A similar vote pattern prevailed when the House voted on the Morrill Tariff during the 1859–60 session. The South voted its self-interest, and that self-interest was free trade.

Thornton and Ekelund argue that the tariff was of paramount im- portance to southern secessionists due to “tariff uncertainty.” Begin- ning in 1824, there were wide swings in tariff rates, with periods of high rates leading to the effective economic plundering of the south. With the ascendancy of the Republican Party and the election of Lincoln, the writing was on the wall that there would be a “politically driven return to high protective tariffs on manufactured goods” (p. 23). Once the war started, “the Yankees were for the most part fighting not to abolish slavery, but for their economic interests and to preserve the Union” (p. 24).

The authors correctly state that the extension of slavery into the new territories was as important as any issue at the outset of the war. It is disappointing, however, that they do not elaborate on the specific economic and political reasons that the Republican Party and its leader, Lincoln, gave for their opposition. Thornton and Ekelund stated very clearly that the Republicans supported the constitutional protection of southern slavery but opposed its extension because: 1) they wanted to protect the jobs of white workers from competition from both slaves and free blacks; and 2) the Three-Fifths Clause of the Constitution, which counted every five slaves as three persons for purposes of determining the number of congressional representatives in each state, would cause an artificial inflation of Democratic Party representation in Congress if slavery were introduced into the territories.

The Republicans were much more dogmatic in their opposition to the extension of slavery than most southerners were in favoring it. New Englanders had been especially severe in attempting to eliminate free blacks from their midst, and they did not want them to occupy the territories. Many northern states, like Illinois, actually made it illegal for free blacks to migrate into the state. One point that is never made is that by seceding, the south lost any hope of extending slavery into the territories of the United States. Once southerners formed their own government, they would have needed the permission of the U.S. government to enter the country and bring slaves with them. By seceding, they abandoned that pros- pect altogether, which suggests that the stories told by Abraham Lincoln—that the “slave power” was threatening not only to bring slavery to the territories, but to the entire north (as he said in his Cooper Union speech)—were nonsense.

The second chapter is a sterling example of the use of applied microeconomics to understand the effectiveness of a major tool of Lincoln’s war on the south: the naval blockade. Two weeks after Fort Sumter, Lincoln announced a naval blockade of the southern ports, and this chapter discusses the economic, political, and social impact of the blockade. The authors refer to Lincoln’s proclamation, but it would have been useful to include it in an appendix. Lincoln gives a clear reason for the blockade—which was clearly an act of war directed mostly at civilians—in the proclamation: tariff collection. With secession, Lincoln reasoned, the constitutional requirement of uniform taxation among all the states was violated. Therefore, he was blockading the ports—and waging war in general—for the purpose of tax collection. In his First Inaugural Address, he promised an invasion of any state that failed to collect the newly-doubled tariff rate, and his blockade announcement was a matter of delivering on that promise.

Thornton and Ekelund analyze the economic effects of the block- ade in the context of what economists call the “Alchian-Allen effect,” named after UCLA economists Armen Alchian and William Allen. For example, consider two substitute products, whiskey and beer. Whiskey costs $10, and an equivalent amount of beer, in terms of weight and alcohol content, costs $5. The relative price ratio is two to one. Now assume that there is a $5 per unit tax added to both items. Whiskey costs $15 and beer goes for $10. The relative price ratio has declined to 1.5. Whiskey is relatively cheaper, which will increase the amount consumers purchase of it compared to beer. Sellers will comply by supplying relatively more whiskey and less beer.

In the context of Lincoln’s blockade, blockade running became necessary to maintain imports. This creates an additional cost to im- porting all goods, and is similar to a tax on imports. The Alchian-Allen effect comes into play; higher-priced “luxury” items imported from abroad all of a sudden become relatively cheaper. Consequently, the southern blockade runners began importing more luxury goods relative to “necessities,” which the authors label the “Rhett Butler effect” after the blockade-running character in Gone with the Wind.

The Rhett Butler effect was debilitating to the southern war effort, and the authors show that a series of government interventions by the Confederate government made the situation even worse. Some goods were “impressed” or essentially confiscated but paid for at below- market prices. This led to shortages of these goods. An import ban on certain luxury goods, coupled with price controls on them, created a very unpopular whiskey shortage! Exports of cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar, and other items were regulated as well, which further distorted the markets for those items. All of these interventions harmed rather than helped the southern economy, hindering the war effort. As our authors write: “In short, the Confederacy failed to employ its economic strength—a free market, cotton-based economy” (p. 54). In other words, the Confederate government proved once again the old truth that war is the mother of the state.

The third chapter is a state-of-the-art survey of the literature on money creation and inflation, north and south, during the war. Both sides inflated to finance the war effort, with the south relying much more heavily on printing currency compared to debt and taxation as a means of financing the war. Being invaded by the largest and best- equipped army in the history of the world, and with a much more modest tax base than the north, it was inevitable that the Confederate government would resort to inflationary finance on a large scale. Perhaps most importantly, Thornton and Ekelund describe “a sea change in the institutions of money and banking” that occurred because of the war.

Before the war, the monetary system was essentially a private system with gold and silver coins circulating as the medium of exchange. The vast bulk of money consisted of privately issued bank notes. . . . After the war, money was dominated by government greenbacks, and the free coinage of silver was ended in 1873. (p. 76)

Lincoln’s National Currency Acts introduced massive federal regulation of banking which, prior to the war, was largely an unregulated free market. With the banking system much more heavily controlled by the federal government in the post-war era, “panics occurred more often, were more domestic in nature, and had more severe and widespread effects” (p. 77). The authors correctly conclude that the nationalization of the money supply during the Lincoln administration was “a major political victory for the Hamiltonian and Whig tradition that sought government control of money and banking and the promotion of government debt and easy credit policies” (p. 78). This, of course, was a policy that Abraham Lincoln fought for in the trenches of the Whig and Republican parties from the moment he entered politics in 1832.

...

Tooconservative  posted on  2019-08-28   17:19:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: Tooconservative (#11)

Those in the North were (mostly) correct that the South had underpaid in taxes

"... the tariff accounted for 95 percent of all federal tax revenues in the 1860s."

I'd say the South overpaid in taxes, but hey, what do I know.

misterwhite  posted on  2019-08-29   10:18:10 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: misterwhite (#12) (Edited)

I'd say the South overpaid in taxes, but hey, what do I know.

I lean toward that view but I can't say I've ever seen the hard data. Mostly, we see summaries but not the data itself. I'd say that the libertarian historians (Von Mises types, Austrian types) all lean hard in that direction. Also, the Austrians always have an ax to grind on money creation and inflation. Always.

So often we rely on biased summaries by some historian or economist.

Besides, it would be hateful if you and I discovered we actually agreed, no?

Tooconservative  posted on  2019-08-29   11:12:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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