The path to martial law

By John Griffing

The gloves are off, and any attempt at pretense is over. Obama is no longer seeking the cover of legitimacy for his rule by executive fiat. Boldly proclaiming that Congress is irrelevant and that "we can't wait," Obama is treading a dangerous path with painfully evident historical parallels. To this end, he is openly and transparently stoking the flames of racial violence.

After his shameless manipulation of the Trayvon Martin shooting death, black-on-white group murders have risen considerably. One young caucasian teen was doused in gasoline and lit on fire by a gang of black youths. On this and other acts of comparable violence, however, President Obama has been strangely silent. A pattern emerges.

Previous Democratic officeholders have used the "race card" to garner sympathy and obscure public focus on actual policy stances, but what Obama is doing is infinitely worse. What purpose can the willful incitement of racial violence serve? And how can a sitting president who has sworn an oath to "protect and defend" the U.S. Constitution, which lists preserving "domestic tranquility" as one of the primary functions of American government, be permitted to promote racial violence by silence or decree without legal ramifications?

Obama's selective silence on recent calls by black activists Al Sharpton and the Black Panthers for indiscriminate violence against white Americans can indeed be interpreted as either an endorsement of or ambivalence toward these actions. If he's not actively coming out against these acts, what could his purpose be?

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Picture this: an America torn by escalating racial violence, riots, looting.

One solution seems clear; the president must act. For the good of the country, of course. To protect our citizens, martial law, or some version of it, seems to be the only logical solution. And, thankfully, President Obama has been preparing for this since 2008.

Does this sound far-fetched? Not any more.

President Obama has employed various techniques, legal mechanisms and crisis-baiting to create the circumstances that will enable him to boldly cross the Rubicon with little to no opposition. Even if some do oppose, Obama will possess the tools of overwhelming force, such as indefinite detention, to serve as disincentives for those who would resist. Let's review the timeline:

Around the time Congress started debating the Obama stimulus package, members of Congress were told that if they didn't approve the financially suicidal legislation, the White House would declare martial law. Is it any wonder Congress lacks the spine to impeach the man currently "occupying" the Oval Office?

In 2008, during the much-hyped swine flu "crisis," Obama advanced new quarantine regulations that give him the unbridled power to imprison anyone with a disease listed in Executive Order 13375, including the over-sensationalized swine flu. These regulations even permit "provisional" quarantine of persons not actually carrying any virus, for any reason. Those who do not agree to be vaccinated can also to be quarantined. Motive is irrelevant. Obama or any who follow him can and may use these regulations to declare "pandemics" as cover for the arrest and detention of vocal political opponents. The vague and broad language make this a distinct possibility.

In 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked for the unprecedented authority to post 400,000 active-duty troops in communities all over the United States in case of "emergencies." This request followed Obama's implementation of a Bush protocol allowing for the stationing of 80,000 troops domestically for "civil unrest and crowd control."

The same year, Obama violated the Posse Comitatus and Insurrection Act, both statutes that are still recognized as having force, by authoring an executive order that transfers the power of declaring martial law from Congress to a Council of Governors. All members of the Council are appointed by Obama and serve at his pleasure. The media were deadly silent on this action, with only obscure press wires confirming what had transpired – a president had just claimed the power of a monarch, i.e. the power to deploy standing armies at whim within the nation's borders.

Obama's National Service Act, legislation authored by Ted Kennedy in his dying days, creates a paramilitary force with eery similarities to Lenin's Cheka, at least as far as hiring practices are concerned. The new and potentially mandatory civilian national security force has been given broad power.

Obama followed these bold actions with the more recent citizen assassination program and the even more insidious detention provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). At his signing of the latter, Obama informed citizens that he did have the power to arrest and detain indefinitely whomever he pleased, but that he wouldn't use the power (except to fight terrorism). And "terrorism" seems to be increasingly defined as any activity that is resistant to the Obama agenda. Recall that the DHS early in Obama's presidency released two reports profiling anyone in the GOP as potential terrorists.

Though dismissed as a "conspiracy theory," FEMA camps, or something like them, might be a reality. Contracts with KBR construction that contain information on the design of these facilities have been leaked to the public, leading some to question the purpose of the facilities, especially in light of "indefinite detention."

The lines are already being blurred by Obama and his media minions; no time has been wasted in arbitrarily linking the many instances of violent shootings in the last two years with the tea-party movement, including last week's Colorado shooting. And Obama's self-proclaimed assassination power is already being deployed as a threat against celebrities who challenge him. Obama has a kill committee to carry out his hits against citizens deemed "terrorists," and he reportedly never misses a meeting.

Clearly, Obama considers chaos and crisis to be advantageous to his plans in some way. Could we not also conclude that Obama might use them as an artificial justification for large-scale clampdowns and restrictions on civil liberties? If Obama benefactor George Soros and other financial authorities are correct, a coming economic collapse would serve as yet another perfect pretext for massive expansion of government power. And maybe, that's just what President Obama wants.

Certain state governors would like to bypass presidential elections in 2012. It is plausible that the White House might engineer chaos to justify the activation of Obama's recently acquired emergency powers. Whatever theory is used to explain them, Obama's actions have clearly placed American freedom and democratic government in severe danger.

Obama is moving far fast. As of February 2012, new legislation opens the floodgates for armed surveillance drones over U.S. skies. A clearer assault on freedom in America would be hard to imagine, though I am sure Obama will think of something. Because, after the election, "President" Obama will have free reign. This is exactly what he told Russia's Medvedev.

America's clock is ticking. Who in Congress will have the courage to do their sworn duty and uphold the law?

John Griffing is a frequent contributor to American Thinker and is published across an array of conservative media, both in the realm of commentary and research.