Comment by smsm42
1 year ago
We're in a permanent emergency now. Which is no surprise - if a mere voluntary act of declaring emergency lets the government do what they otherwise can't - why not declare it over and over?
Check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...
In the US we have 42 (!) ongoing national emergencies. The oldest dating back to 1979. I think most of US-based HN readers never lived in non-emergency US.
That’d be September 1978 – November 1979 and before then during the roaring twenties if I read this right.
Maybe POTUS should declare an emergency to reduce the number of emergencies?
Looks like that's exactly how they got a full non-emergency year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Report_of_the_Special_Committe...
Of course, it didn't last long - as soon as the focus moved on, emergencies started popping back up.
They are declared in an emergency (most of them are sanctions to freeze money and freedoms of foreigners). That does not mean you live in an emergency. That they are still active means only that the Parlament was too lazy or too blocked to put them in a law.
Legally, it means exactly that - the government wasn't allowed to do X, but they said the magic word "emergency", and now they are allowed to do X as much as they want, until they decide they are done. Of course, this means they were always allowed to do X, it's just that the public will eat it more easily if instead of saying "the government can take your freedoms anytime" they'd say "the government can't take you freedom ever - except if there's a real dangerous emergency". Functionally, those are exactly the same, but the latter sounds much more "reasonable".
What you describe is the abuse of the power. In the list of US emergencies 80% are sanctions (which qualify as emergencies I would say bc they would not work), 15% real emergencies and the there are the ones which start to be controversial. All what I am saying is: it is a tool for an government. Governments do things wrong. They wrongfully arrest, invade countries, collaterally murder, take bribes, etc. That is daily happening. And the courts and Parlament habe the job to fix , prevent or correct that.
It is not easy to run your life, company or government org without doing once in a while something wrong. It is how you behave afterwards and overall which matters.
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