Trumps Berlin Wall, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger!
(2019-09-04 at 13:35:00 )

Trumps Berlin Wall, Part 2 by Jacob G. Hornberger

In my August 30 article, entitled "Trumps Berlin Wall," I wrote:

-In any event, desperate to appease his statist supporters before Election Day, President Trump is proceeding apace with the construction of his Berlin Wall along the United States-Mexico border.

Never mind that he has never succeeded in getting congressional approval for his massive public-works project. In the finest tradition of dictators everywhere, he has decided to do it anyway, not with his own money but instead with money that the United States Congress appropriated to the Pentagon for military "defense."

A reader sent me an angry email accusing me of lying, pointing out that the United States Congress approved partial funding for Trumps Wall in February 2019.

He is partially right and partially wrong.

He is right about Congress approval of the funding. I did not know that. He is wrong about my lying about the matter. I made a mistake. That is different from lying.

Actually, however, my error does not detract from the real meaning of my piece, which is the dictatorial conduct that President Trump is engaged in.

Moreover, in a larger context, what President Trump is doing goes to show how it is not only liberals who have destroyed our free society, it is also conservatives.

In February 2019, as part of the deal to end President Trumps month-long "shutdown" of the federal government, the United States Congress voted to allot $1.375 billion for new fencing along the United States-Mexico border. That would mean about 55 miles of President Trumps border wall.

Needless to say, that appropriation left President Trump angry and frustrated.

During his campaign, he promised his supporters that he would build his Wall along the entire border and that he would force Mexico to pay for it.

He broke his promise with respect to Mexico a long time ago.

Rather than use his own personal money to build his Wall, he is now forcing United States of Americans taxpayers to pay for it.

That is why President Trump is angry and frustrated.

He wanted the United States Congress to force American taxpayers to fund his entire Wall, not just 55 miles of it.

To circumvent the clear intent of the United States Congress, President Trump declared a "national emergency" and ordered a diversion of an additional $6 billion in funds that Congress had appropriated to the Pentagon.

Congress, however, did not appropriate those funds to the Pentagon to build a wall. The funds were appropriated for "military defense."

To make its intent clear, after President Trump issued his dictatorial decree, the United States Congress passed a resolution that expressly opposed any diversion of Pentagon funds to the construction of Donald Trumps Wall.

Faithfully and loyally following President Trumps orders, the Pentagon is now putting some 127 military construction projects on hold so that it can divert the funds to the construction of President Trumps Wall.

That means, of course, that those 127 "defense" projects were unnecessary to "defense" in the first place, which, of course, should not surprise anyone.

Just consider just the financial ramifications of President Trumps dictatorial action.

$1.375 billion funded 55 miles. $6 billion more out of Pentagon funds will build, say, another 150 miles.

That is a total of 200 miles. The border is 1,952 miles long.

That means that President Trump and the Pentagon still have a long way to go. But now that the precedent has been established, President Trump now has carte blanche to use Pentagon funds to his hearts content to build his wall.

Never mind that United States of American taxpayers are already hard-pressed.

Never mind that the Donald Trump administration is spending annually $1 trillion more than what it is bringing in with tax revenues.

Never mind that the federal governments debt now exceeds $22 trillion.

Never mind that President Trump and the Democrats just cut a deal to lift the debt ceiling again and extend it beyond the election.

All of that does not matter.

All that matters is to Donald Trump and his Big Spending conservative supporters is that he gets his new Berlin Wall.

We live under a system of government where the ruler is not supposed to be permitted to do whatever he wants.

Under our system, the ruler is required to operate within certain boundaries.

Thus, under our system, the president does not enact the laws.

That is the responsibility of the United States Congress.

When the president wants to build a public-works project, such as President Trumps Wall, he must secure approval from Congress and the appropriation of funds from Congress.

For example, when President Eisenhower, another Republican, wanted to build the Interstate Highway System, another socialist public-works boondoggle, which he too justified as a military necessity, he still had to go to Congress to get the project approved and the funds appropriated.

He was not permitted, under our system of government, to just order the military to begin constructing the highways. Ike understood that if he had done that, he would be operating like a dictator in a totalitarian regime.

The reader who accused me of "lying" also pointed out that the United States Supreme Court has upheld President Trumps diversion of Pentagon funds and, therefore, that makes what he is doing okay.

What my critic, along with President Trumps army of loyal followers, fails to recognize is that the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary have long deferred to the power of the United States national-security establishment, especially on matters relating to "National Security."

That is just the way things work under a national-security state type of governmental system.

Here is what Trumpsters and other conservatives just do not get with President Trump now operating in uncharted dictatorial waters: The power they are surrendering to President Trump will now be able to be exercised by any president, not just Trump.

That obviously includes any Democrat who happens to defeat Donald Trump.

President Trump is establishing a dictatorial precedent that will be able to be followed by a President Sanders, Warren, Harris, Clinton, or any other Democrat who wins the presidency in the future.

Imagine a President Sanders declaring a national healthcare emergency and ordering the Pentagon to divert funds to a fully socialized healthcare system, without congressional approval.

What will conservatives say then?

Iwill tell you what they will say.

They will say nothing.

They will meekly accede to such dictatorial conduct because they know that they will have no realistic way to object to it, given their support of the same dictatorial conduct by their former Great Leader, Donald Trump.

When deliberating over whether to give a ruler a certain power, imagine that the ruler is your worst enemy, and then decide whether you want him to have that power.

If you decide that you do not want your worst enemy to wield such a power, then do not delegate it at all, not even if the current ruler happens to be your Great Leader.

This is just one of the ways that conservatives have destroyed liberty and limited government in the United States of America.

For anyone for whom liberty and limited government are still important, there is but one place to go: libertarianism.

Reprinted here with permission from Mr. Jacob G. Hornberger of The Future of Freedom Foundation!! Their Great Website!!