This is awkward, it’s Abraham Lincoln’s birthday but I’m starting this off by criticizing him. If I ever made a presidential tier list, I don’t think Lincoln would be in the SS tier. Any criticism of Lincoln today focuses on his stance on slavery. Mine is about Lincoln’s use of emergency power.
Lincolns’ most famous act, the Emancipation Proclamation, was an executive order (which I’m not sure I support any executive order instead of a congressional order and effectively did nothing because slavery was only properly ended via Amendment which is also somewhat why I support it because it was more of a symbol for war). Lesser known, Lincoln suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus. On April 27, 1861, [15 days into the civil war] Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia to give military authorities the necessary power to silence dissenters and rebels. Under this order, commanders could arrest and detain individuals who were deemed threatening to military operations. Imagine that today. Anyone deemed a threat to national security is arrested without trial. Many people would support arresting terrorists or even extrajudicial killings of terrorists. But now, everyone is (or could be) a terrorist.
To rule by diktat is to rule without the consent of the governed (doing lesser things without consent is punishable with jail). Leadership should be in service of those you lead, not to rule over and control them. It is called public service for a reason. And we the people ought not to tolerate anyone who does this even if it is a “time of emergency” and a necessary evil. It shouldn’t be the court ruling from the bench, the president changing millions of lives with a stroke of a pen (though in the case of Biden maybe also an actual stroke), congress passing things through technicality when representatives don’t show up to work.
It is a great honor to be elected to serve your community. For years I have been thinking “how does someone have the ego to rule and control over a company or country that they didn’t build?” until my friend told me it’s not to rule over but to guide and serve others. Company boards are elected and representatives of the board (CXOs) hire those below, and so on and so forth. Similarly, countries do the same thing (more obviously). But countries are bigger, are pseudo-monopolistic, and have executive power, so it’s different.
To give a weak leader power is a death wish. They will grasp onto it and never let go. Few people are like Washington and willingly walk away from power. Many relinquish it when forced to (via term limits or misconduct) or the public wishes for them to (referendum changing policies depending on polls) but the leaders all want more power. It does take someone with an ego to lead, and many believe them to know what’s best for everyone, and with that dangerous pride, they unilaterally enact disastrous policies that if you disagree with, you just don’t want what’s best for everyone and are an enemy. An enemy that. if in a state of emergency, would be arrested. They want their world view to become the world reality and as such will cling to any semblance of power they have, rapidly expanding any powers they’ve been granted.
This is greatly magnified when combined with loss aversion. A temporary power granted via emergency powers is lost after the emergency is over, so they wish the emergency is never over so they never feel the loss of power and will do anything to maintain the emergency.
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”
― Rahm Emmanuel
So don’t let them get the power in the first place. Vote to not allow that to happen. Executive power for good or bad is never a good thing. People further away from you and who represent more people have less of an idea of what your interests are. As long as you think Trump, or Biden, or whoever is next doesn’t speak for you, you should despise executive power even if it can do great things. The most efficient leader is the one unopposed, the godlike monarch, but he is also the evilest. A test of a good system is that you can hand it over to your opponents and still have a good quality of life. Executive power fails this test.
Short one today but it’s fine because I know no one reads anyway (so I write for myself) but I did want to get this out before Lincoln’s birthday finishes. I may have failed that depending on the time zone.