Thursday, November 10, 2016

I ordered ice cream, but will try to tolerate what was served.

I've been back on campus since the election, since I teach MWF mornings.  I had an equal amount of gloating in class...and outright terror.  Not anger.  Terror. 

Some of my students are terrified that President Elect Trump is going to do what Democrats have been saying he's going to do: deport everyone with brown skin, make gay sex illegal, roll back rights sixty or seventy years by making birth control and abortion illegal...

Thing is, he can't.  He literally cannot do these things.  Not legally.  All he can do is make sure that immigration laws are enforced, borders are guarded, and actually do the fucking job he was hired to do. 

He does, however, have the precedents set by his predecessor, which aren't good, but...

He legally cannot deport people in this country who are here on a student visa, work visa, or working their way through the process to immigrate.  Nor does he have any intention to. 

He, as President, cannot make law.  He cannot make gay sex, birth control, or abortion illegal.  Nor does he have any intention to. 

He cannot declare war.  He cannot sign treaties.  He cannot do anything, legally, that the current POTUS has been doing for the past eight years, and everybody on both sides hate him enough that he won't get away with trying.  

What he can  do is work with congress to sign laws placed before him.  He can defund executive branch government offices, should he so choose.  He can assess the state and direction of the nation, and suggest things for the legislative branch to maybe think about doing to fix a perceived problem, or right a wrong. 

The things that a president, any president, can and cannot do, must and must not do, are all laid out in very plain language that takes a lawyer to misunderstand.  Same as the responsibilities, duties, and acts forbidden to the legislative, and to the judicial, branches.  

It's all there, in the contract between the Federal government and the American people that he must swear to uphold and defend in his oath of office. 

6 comments:

  1. Ah... The misguided left... They actually BELIEVE the sounds bites... Too funny! I feel for those kids when they have to face the reality of the world without their safe spaces and blankies...

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    1. I know, right? I spent a LOT of time trying to reassure my students.

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  2. But we gave those powers to Obama! Trump will just abuse them!

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    1. Don't give your guy the powers you wouldn't want in the hands of a Nehemiah Scudder...or a Mustapha Mond...and you don't have to worry about how the next guy will use the powers you gave your guy.

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  3. See I like to torture the poor and stupid when they say stuff like that by telling them "yes he is".

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    1. These kids are still in the kid mode: listen to your elders, they know what's best. They haven't yet learned that their elders are full of shit and lying to them deliberately.

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