I’ve been doing some reading about the repeal of the 1950 Emergency Detention Act…. this is part of what Nixon said when he signed the bill to repeal that act:
“the mere continued existence of these legal provisions has aroused concern among many Americans that the act might someday be used to apprehend and detain citizens who hold unpopular views. Some have feared that it might someday be used to permit a situation comparable to the detention of Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
I have supported and signed this repeal in order to put an end to such suspicions. In taking this action, I want to underscore this Nation’s abiding respect for the liberty of the individual. Our democracy is built upon the constitutional guarantee that every citizen will be afforded due process of law. There is no place in American life for the kind of anxiety–however unwarranted–which the Emergency Detention Act has evidently engendered.
This strong country has no reason to fear that the normal processes of law-together with those special emergency powers which the Constitution grants to the Chief Executive–will be inadequate to deal with any situation, no matter how grave, that may arise in the future. But we do have a great deal to fear if we begin to lose faith in our constitutional ideals.”
Yes, folks, this was Richard Milhous Nixon — and don’t you wish that President Obama had the courage and the spirit to make such a statement himself? Why does President Obama have less faith in the U.S. Constitution than Nixon? How could there be such a threat today from terrorism, that it would be beyond the imagination of Richard Nixon? Do you, or does any reasonable man or woman in this country, truly believe that there is a threat greater than anything in Nixon’s warped paranoid skull?
David Gergen said several years ago that if Richard Nixon were running for office today, he would have to run as a Democrat. I’m wondering if the Democrats would even take him. Nixon probably had too many real principles to fit into something like today’s Democratic Party……
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