But in principle, it seems to me that all Emergency Authority granted to any Executive anywhere, from the United States President, to all our Governors, to all our Mayors and Sheriffs, ought to be have a time limit. An expiration date.
Yes, you can react forcefully and quickly to something which requires it. But after thirty days, it expires without express legislative authorization and empowerment.
This whole pandemic has exposed a serious and perhaps one day fatal flaw in our system. Hitler was not elected Supreme Dictator. He had all sorts of controls on him when he was first made Chancellor. Paul Hindenburg was his boss, among other things, or so I recall. Hitler needed the Reichstag to authorize most of his actions.
But then (as most believe) he set fire to the Reichstag, blamed internal enemies of the State, and arrogated to himself emergency powers. He may have even described them as temporary at the time. I don’t recall. Just give me this, and I’ll fix all your problems, he no doubt said.
10-12 years later (I forget the exact dates), Berlin was in flames, and another generation of German men was dead.
I don’t know the remedy. It may vary State to State. But we all need to plug this leak while we still can. Far too many governors have shown far too much sexual excitement at their newfound ability to play S&M games with us.
And in that regard, aren’t you just CURIOUS why Andrew Cuomo has his nipples pierced? Do you think any of us really want to know that back story? I don’t. But I do. You know the drill. You’re a rubbernecker too.
Our Framers knew human beings are prone to depravity and ill will. They knew the worst among us tend to be the ones most interested in power. But we need leaders. Their negotiated solution was power, but power with limits: legal limits, time limits, and spacial limits.