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Originally Posted by SEC_Chick
So is anyone troubled by Bernie's authoritarian streak?
2 examples from last night:
Wanting to prosecute energy executives as criminals, not based on future changes in the law, but for "the destruction they have knowingly caused." Past actions... with seemingly no legal basis.
Also, on marijuana legalization within 100 days, and vacating and expunging all related convictions and moving the clemency board from the DOJ to the WH and using an executive order to declassify pot as a controlled substance. I did not care for Obama's executive actions. I also hate Trump's executive actions (except for the ones undoing Obama's because what can be done by executive authority should by definition be able to be undone by executive authority), so I also am wholeheartedly against making nationwide changes to criminal law without action by the legislature. Making the presidency *more* imperial isn't the answer, as Trump has shown.
I can warn you that nominating someone in reliance on the fact that they cannot ACKSHUALLY accomplish what they have promised is not a good place to be.
It seems as if to the general public, Bernie has not been fully vetted. Not really. For example, the whole rape fantasy essay hasn't come up in the debates at all yet. Information about his pro-dictator streak is just dribbling out now. I am sure that once he gets the nomination it is all going to be aired for the less online folk, and maybe it's just me, but it seems like the rape fantasy thing may hurt him with suburban women???
Bernie is domineering and shouty in the debates, but I don't think he can beat Trump at that game.
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I have already said that I am not a Bernie fan. Still true. But I'm not seeing an authoritarian streak.
On the first thing, I had not heard that he said this, but I would wager that if he were asked, he would say they should be prosecuted under existing criminal laws. Yes, I agree that it sounds far-fetched. But not authoritarian in my book, unless he were to make it happen, and he doesn't seem the sort.
On declassifying pot, I thought that the current drug laws essentially vested discretion in the executive branch to classify controlled substances, and that any President has the power to change that classification by executive action. If people don't like that, it needs to be fixed by Congress.
Agree that Bernie feels unvetted. Those to his right seem more interested in knocking off each other than in going after him. Or did until last night. Too late?
