Obama Crowned Himself on New Year’s Eve
David Swanson
WarIsACrime.org
These were among the complaints registered the last time this nation had a king:
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
“He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
“For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
“For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
“For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
“He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.”
To prevent the U.S. government from behaving like a king, the drafters of the U.S. Constitution empowered an elected legislature to write every law, to declare every war, and to remove its executive from office. To further prevent the abuse of individuals’ rights, those authors wrote into the Constitution, even prior to the Bill of Rights, the right to habeas corpus and the right never to be punished for treason unless convicted in an open court on the testimony of at least two witnesses to an overt act of war or assistance of an enemy.
The Rest…HERE
