National Emergencies Quotes
the attack on Pearl Harbor
Marijuana was and still is a health and social problem in that people who tend to use it---especially young people---tend not to focus on their friendships, their work and study obligations, their own development and welfare. However it is nowhere near the degree of deleterious problems of alcohol and other drugs like heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. There is no record of anyone dying from an over dose or marijuana while alcohol and other drugs kill hundreds if not thousands a year. But none of those health emergencies compare with the flu which each year kills over 20,000 Americans who do not get inoculations or highway crashes which kill about 50,000. Yet Nixon did not characterize these as “national emergencies.”
His refusal to explain the reasons for and the circumstances of the arrests drew much criticism from Democrats and the press. This was the precedent that Presidents have used ever since to not reveal the grounds for arrest and the circumstances thereof. George W. Bush aides specifically cited this when they refused the details of many of the arrests after the 9-11 attack.
There are some who believe that in a time of national emergency the government has the right to suspend the bill of rights or any other constitutional provision. This view is typically held by most foreign governments and they do this all the time. However in America, there is a general consensus that emergency does not vitiate the constitution. However even President Abraham Lincoln tried to suspend aspects of the Bill of Rights during a national crisis.
Mosley had been incarcerated without charges or trial under the “national emergency” of the Second World War. This prevented him from organizing his “Blackshirts.” When it was clear that Germany would lose the war, Oswald was released, but without the prospect of Fascism dominating continental Europe, there was little interest in Fascist movements in England.
