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25
49
All Hail Emperor Obama Nope, Just the President
Debate Score:74
Arguments:54
Total Votes:86
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 All Hail Emperor Obama (15)
 
 Nope, Just the President (27)

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Obama is taking Executive Action on Immigration...does that make him Emperor of

Obama to announce immigration executive action...but earlier this year he stated he wouldn't do so...does that make him the Emperor he stated he wouldn't become?

Copy of the text...

Does President Obama think he’s emperor of the United States?

That’s the question a reporter dared to ask the White House in a press briefing Tuesday.

ABC reporter Jonathan Karl recalled Obama’s argument that he doesn’t have legal authority to bypass Congress and declare amnesty through an executive order. On Feb. 14, 2013, Obama said, “I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.”

At Tuesday’s press briefing, Karl asked White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, “Does the president still stand by what he said last year when he said, ‘I am not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.’ Is that still operative?”

“Absolutely,” Earnest replied.

“Not a king, either?” asked Karl, as the audience chuckled.

“That’s right,” said Earnest flatly.


 

 

 

All Hail Emperor Obama

Side Score: 25
VS.

Nope, Just the President

Side Score: 49

Executive Orders are unconstitutional because there is no provision nor statute that explicitly permits executive orders. Executive orders have full force of the law, only Congressional laws should have full force of the law, Executive branch is only supposed to merely implement those laws.

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
2 points

unconstitutional

First, Executive orders are just a way to communicate policy to the executive agencies (and sometimes the public.)

Second, Article 2 Section 1: "The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America."

Also, every President since George Washington has issued executive orders (except the one that died after a month in office) - ref

Executive orders have full force of the law

That is not precisely true - executive orders can be overridden by laws (depending on the law and the executive order), and can always be changed by succeeding President.

only supposed to merely implement those laws

How the executive branch implements the law is discretionary and serves as a (temporary) check and balance on Congress. The Supreme Court has deemed such discretion as Constitutional.

Side: Nope, Just the President

Right, and if the executive branch is somehow able to do that... then the executive branch's limitations needs to be a little revamped. Either that, or more fucking limitations need to be added.

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
2 points

Obama states publicly he won't take action on immigration reform because he doesn't want to be an Emperor...but less than a year later he is dictating immigration reform...so WTF gives?

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
2 points

Perhaps the one abusing his authority is John Boehner who is refusing to bring a bill to the floor which would pass.

(after specifically changing the rules)

Side: Nope, Just the President
daver(1771) Disputed
1 point

Do you know why Boehner won't bring it to a vote.

50chr. 50chr 50chr 50chr

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
1 point

Q Thank you, Mr. President.Following up on immigration -- in 2010, when asked by immigration reform advocates to stop deportations and act alone on providing legal status for the undocumented, you said, “I’m President, I’m not king.I can’t do these things just by myself.”In 2013, you said, “I’m not the emperor of the United States.My job is to execute laws that are passed.”Mr. President, what has changed since then? And since you’ve now had a chance to talk since July with your legal advisors, what do you now believe are your limits so that you can continue to act as President and not as emperor or king?

--------

PRESIDENT OBAMA:Well, actually, my position hasn’t changed.When I was talking to the advocates, their interest was in me, through executive action, duplicating the legislation that was stalled in Congress.And getting a comprehensive deal of the sort that is in the Senate legislation, for example, does extend beyond my legal authorities.There are certain things I cannot do.There are certain limits to what falls within the realm of prosecutorial discretion in terms of how we apply existing immigration laws.

And what we’ve continued to do is to talk to Office of Legal Counsel that’s responsible for telling us what the rules are, what the scope of our operations are, and determining where it is appropriate for us to say we’re not going to deport 11 million people.On the other hand, we’ve got severe resource constraints right now at the border not in apprehending people, but in processing and having enough immigration judges and so forth.And so what’s within our authority to do in reallocating resources and reprioritizing since we can’t do everything.And it’s on that basis that I’ll be making a decision about any executive actions that I might take.

I will repeat what I have said before:There is a very simple solution to this perception that somehow I’m exercising too much executive authority.Pass a bill I can sign on this issue.If Congress passes a law that solves our border problems, improves our legal immigration system, and provides a pathway for the 11 million people who are here working in our kitchens, working in farms, making beds in hotels, everybody knows they’re there, we’re not going to deport all of them.We’d like to see them being able, out in the open, to pay their taxes, pay a penalty, get right with the law.Give me a bill that addresses those issues -- I’ll be the first one to sign it and, metaphorically, I’ll crumple up whatever executive actions that we take and we’ll toss them in the wastebasket, because we will now have a law that addresses these issues.

ref

Side: Nope, Just the President
daver(1771) Disputed
1 point

Obama mocks those who dare disagree with him, creating the most divided and dysfunctional Congress in history. Then he has the audacity to complain that nothing gets done. A true leader will eventually come and bring us together. Until then we have an inflexible ideologue who will not even try to unite us.

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama

Obama is everything most of us knew he would be.... a LIBERAL!

Liberal's are arrogant control fanatics who think they have all the answers to our lives. They will be tax us to pay for their agendas and censor that which disagrees with their agendas. They don't think you should have guns or hunt animals. They not only believe it is ok to kill unborn Babies for any reason at any stage but their arrogance will FORCE you to pay for it. If you smoke they will tax cigarettes to the point of not being able to afford them just as they are trying to raise the cost of ammunition. They also want to tax soda and with all these taxes, they will fund their Liberal agendas.

They must censor all mention of God from our public lives because they want to have control of our minds. They want no competition from God.

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
thousandin1(1931) Clarified
3 points

Politicians are arrogant control fanatics who think they have all the answers to our lives. They will be tax us to pay for their agendas and censor that which disagrees with their agendas.

Fixed that for you.

They not only believe it is ok to kill unborn Babies for any reason at any stage but their arrogance will FORCE you to pay for it.

And American Conservatives support wars on foreign soil over nothing, and their arrogance forces liberal and moderate Americans to pay for them. Whats your point?

They also want to tax soda and with all these taxes, they will fund their Liberal agendas.

Whereas American Conservatives want to cut social programs and pilfer from social security to fund their agendas- at least American Liberals aren't overtly taking money from the poor and elderly.

They must censor all mention of God from our public lives because they want to have control of our minds. They want no competition from God.

And the religious right wants exactly the opposite.

A pretty polar post, but American conservatives and liberals are the same kind of scum. There is no moral distinction between the two, they're just two awful flavors of the same bad candy.

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
FromWithin(8241) Clarified
1 point

Either you or your family must be dead beat users of tax payer subsidies to sit there and not care about the huge tax increases from Democrats on the middle class. Take a look at the huge middle class healthcare premiums & deductible increases thanks to Obamacare. The middle class is being taxed to death with property taxes and a million other taxes & fees to pay for the Democrat low income voting block. You are such an idiot to spew the same tired lies & rhetoric. Yes the GOP is trying to help the hard working tax payers not have their income stolen to give to scammers & users of our social programs.

Democrats have started as many wars as the GOP you fool!

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
2 points

a LIBERAL

Just ask a liberal if they think so...

They don't think you should have guns or hunt animals.

Strawman - show me the bill against hunting...

Obama proposed popular gun measures which, of course, don't ban all guns or hunting, etc.

I think the magazine capacity should be a little more than 10 and it is very difficult to write an assault weapons ban without unintendend consequences (thumb-hole stock being ruled a pistol grip, etc.), but a background check is common-sense and supported by > 90% of the public - so ask yourself why it doesn't pass...

FORCE you to pay for it.

strawman again - the Hyde Amendment has been in effect since 1976 (since the 90s it has allowed exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother). "Obamacare" incorporates it (Section 1303), and specifically allows states to prevent exchanges from covering any other abortions (even with personal money). In fact, it basically requires insurers to pass on more than the cost of abortion coverage - requiring them to charge $1/month/enrolee when sometimes the coverage would only cost 1/10th of that.

Also, everybody pays taxes for shit they don't like - I knew the whole time that Bush/Cheney were lying about Iraq, but we still owe trillions of dollars for a war that was carried out quite stupidly.

They must censor all mention of God

Nope - just public sponsored mentions of God.

they will fund their Liberal agendas

I'd love to see what you think that entails.

Side: Nope, Just the President

they all think they're emperors. perhaps I am just the cynical one, perhaps the realistic one. Bush was no different. power gets to peoples heads. the President of the United States is arguably the most powerful man in the world. so we see.

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama

If Obama abuses Executive Action, then that's not the legal system permitting him to be an emperor, but since he's frequently overriding Congress and everyone in the country...

That fits the definition of a "king" or "emperor."

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
JustIgnoreMe(4290) Clarified
1 point

he's frequently overriding Congress and everyone in the country...

A few notes:

- Obama doesn't have a high rate of Executive Orders compared to other recent Presidents

- The immigration order is not contrary to existing law so it wouldn't be "overriding Congress"

- 50% say the policy is "about right" and another 22% say "it doesn't go far enough" - so it doesn't seem to override "everyone in the country" either

That fits the definition of a "king" or "emperor."

There is more to being a king than just doing something that some people disagree with, right?

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
ghostheadX(1105) Disputed
2 points

There is more to being a king than just doing something that some people disagree with, right?

Exactly, and an emperor doesn't have to disagree with everyone either.

Obama doesn't have a high rate of Executive Orders compared to other recent Presidents

But clearly he stood out because what his immigration reforms were especially forbidden or we wouldn't be having this debate.

50% say the policy is "about right" and another 22% say "it doesn't go far enough"

Maybe true.

so it doesn't seem to override "everyone in the country" either

And again, an emperor doesn't act based on disagreeing with everyone. They do what they do despite what the country or advisers say. But that doesn't mean that everyone doesn't agree with what that emperor/empress does. There have been quite beloved emperors throughout history, although I'm not saying that that's Obama. I'm just saying that your statement doesn't contradict what I said.

Side: Nope, Just the President
4 points

Ronald Reagan took executive action on Immigration . . . . does that make him emperor?

George H.W. Bush took executive action on immigration . . . . does that make him emperor?

This are historical facts. . . just google it!

Side: Nope, Just the President
zico20(345) Disputed
1 point

You are purposely distorting the facts on Reagan's actions. He issued his executive action to tweak the 1986 immigration overhaul bill. If you go back to 1986 you will find that many in congress believed there were flaws in the bill that passed and Reagan was fixing minor issues that should have been addressed in the bill. No way was Reagan acting like Obama is now. Same for Bush. He was acting upon the same bill.

Obama is acting like an Emperor. If he doesn't like what he sees, he unilaterally acts on it. There is a clear difference between what Reagan did and Obama did.

Please learn your history and you will understand the major differences between them on immigration.

Side: All Hail Emperor Obama
3 points

And "many in congress" support the provisions in Obama's Executive Order as well.

The Reagan/Bush changes affected roughly the same percentage of undocumented immigrants which existed at the time. The only difference being the raw numbers.

the major differences between them

Are there differences besides the number of immigrants affected?

Side: Nope, Just the President
14giraffes(87) Disputed
2 points

A couple of things: 1) Today republicans have drifted so far to the right that they discredit Reagan and Bush for their executive actions on immigration. 2) Obama has been waiting for the republicans to act on immigration for a very long time now. 3) What Obama did (in terms of action) is identical to what the former presidents have done.

Side: Nope, Just the President
14giraffes(87) Disputed
2 points

I simply stated that he made the same action, which is accurate. The theory that Reagan was tweaking what the "congress" wanted is obviously false. If the congress wanted to grant temporary workers permits they could have. The problem is the same back then as it is today: It is difficult to get the congress to do much because of all the gridlock. With all the gridlock, just like with Reagan, Obama had to use executive order.

Side: Nope, Just the President

Jeesh - people haven't even seen what he is going to do yet and already he is emporer.

Yea - the division in the country is prolly his fault...

Side: Nope, Just the President

Temporary immigration relief has been issued by every President since Eisenhower

Side: Nope, Just the President
2 points

Executive action is not a new conception of the Obama administration, and it is hardly without its limitations. Calling any American president an "emperor" is a gross exaggeration since they remain very constrained by partisan politics and vested financial interests, at least relative to an actual emperor.

Side: Nope, Just the President

Executive discretion is a well-established Constitutional use of power.

Side: Nope, Just the President
1 point

That's an interesting painting, and it's very telling how it's done. Obama is not portrayed as a Roman emperor, or as a king. He's portrayed as Napoleon, and there's a very interesting parallel between Napoleon and Obama (there is very much they do not have in common, but one thing they do have in common is this): crazy, right-wing nuts wrongly regard them as the face of the revolution for basically doing things that are not only not revolutionary at all, but that those very right-wingers themselves have been doing forever. And this is the case with immigration reform. Executive action on immigration is far from new. It was undertaken by a wide variety of different presidents, with the most analogous to the present situation being George H.W. Bush.

Let me break down the separation of powers: the chief executive is an elected official, and as such has discretion over how to execute legislation, and that inherently includes the power to refrain from executing some legislation. If it did not include that power, there would be very little reason to vote for the chief executive at all, since that person would only be the servant of the legislature. And the historical precedent for executive orders is overwhelming. It's as old as the country, and all executive orders are simply an exercise of the president's discretion of how or whether to execute a given legislative mandate.

Nothing in the immigration reform, from allocating more budget resources to border control, to refusing to seek deportation against certain persons when there are active people who could otherwise be deported under the legislative scheme of modern immigration law, steps outside of the core decisions of how to follow the legislative scheme. It doesn't take affirmative legislative action by any standard. It is squarely within the authority of the president.

Nor is it particularly revolutionary, and I say this as someone who wishes it was revolutionary. To state my own ideology, I am an anarchist who believes there should be no such thing as borders. I wish deeply that this was a revolutionary act, but it is not. It is a mild reform well within the president's authority.

Side: Nope, Just the President

Alright, so just so you all know, I haven't googled this nearly as much as you guys have. But I have a few questions before I delve into the knowledge, considering what I do know:

1. A lot of people I've met think that our separation of powers has failed, in that it works together as a corrupt system, and its actually possible for one branch to win out at some point. I'm obviously pulling this out of my ass, but does anyone think Obama could have done this? If so, I'd like to see a link proving that he could because that would be more convincing.

2. What's wrong with using executive orders and why does that make him an emperor? Every president, I would believe, has overridden congress with executive orders. Isn't that why a president is given the authority to use executive orders? I'm sure the separation of powers has some limitation on executive orders right?

3. I know Obama is from Hawaii, his father is from Kenya, and he lived in Indonesia in different parts of his life. Fair enough, so maybe he's supportive of Islam as an American state, and maybe he isn't. We'll probably never know. All I want to comment on that is, if he's the "emperor" then its fairly reasonable that the racist Islamic conspiracy theory works in his favor. If he isn't secretly an Islamic racist stereotype, then I don't see any reason why he would secretly be in office to ruin America. Does anyone here think that's the case?

With those three things in mind, how would both sides of this debate respond to these things? I haven't researched this particular news subject much myself, although I will for purposes of this debate. But in the mean time, I want to see what the responses are.

Side: Nope, Just the President
1 point

Remember the Emancipation Proclamation? Or the New Deal? Both of those were Executive Orders which at the time were thought to be dictatorial and thought to be overstepping the bounds of the presidency. Both the Emancipation Proclamation and the New Deal had very vocal critics who claimed that these Executive Orders would be the downfall of the democratic system of the United States. We all know how much their predictions came true. I believe that sometimes, a strong executive action is necessary when something needs to get done and gathering bi-partisan support is far too difficult or even impossible. President Obama is not overstepping his authority with his use of Executive Action, he is in fact following a precedent set by many great presidents before him and setting a precedent for many presidents to come.

Side: Nope, Just the President