Andrew P. Napolitano - Suicide pact: the radical expansion of presidential powers and the lethal threat to American liberty

Praise for Suicide Pact

There is no one more qualified than Judge Andrew Napolitano to serve as our guide through American legal and political history to show how power-hungry politicians have used the magic words national security to break free from the chains of the Constitution and put us in the chains of authoritarianism.

Former Congressman Ron Paul (RTexas)

Former judge, law professor, and author Andrew Napolitano documents how unlimited perpetual wars concentrate unaccountable power in the presidency and proceed to shred constitutional boundaries and due processes, crush public budgets, and expand an American Empire that, like all Empires, will eventually devour itself. Read the gripping details about how our constitutional balance of powers and individual rights are being repealed de facto by the merger of political and economic power that led to President Eisenhowers farewell warning regarding the military-industrial complex and its destructive impact on our liberties. Whether youre Left or Right, Napolitanos documented thesis will resonate.

Ralph Nader, Author of Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State

With the judiciousness of a judge (which he once was), the perspective of a historian (which he here proves himself to be), and the passion of an alarmed patriot (which his many viewers on Fox News know him to be), Judge Napolitano calls attention to the foremost constitutional challenge of our day, that of circumscribing executive power.

George Will, Syndicated Columnist

Today, our constitutional liberties are under assault, and Judge Napolitanos sharp legal analysis documenting the steady erosion of American freedom should be a wake-up call for Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and Libertarians alike.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

Our Founders agreed that when there are not enough citizens informed on why they are Americans in this self-governing republic, the Constitution would flounder. And this is why Judge Andrew Napolitanos Suicide Pact is so greatly needed and so continually absorbing a public service.

Never before in our history have so many Americansstudents and adultsbeen so unaware of the disappearance of the separation of powers ignored by imperial administrations from Bush-Cheney and now the even more un-American regime of President Obama.

In Suicide Pact, Judge Napolitano, as always, brings the Constitution and our individual personal liberties alivethereby strengthening the active American identities of this and future generations. No matter who is elected president in 2016, this is the book to revive us as Americans.

Nat Hentoff, Author of The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance, Living The Bill of Rights: How To Be An Authentic American, and The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America

Nobody in America today is a stronger and more energetic champion of individual rights, natural freedom, and strictly limited government than Fox News Judge Andrew Napolitano. Suicide Pact is his best work yet. Its a cant-put-it-down history lesson, a page-turning legal argument, and his single-strongest statement ever on just how far America has strayed from its promise of being a government of laws and not of power-hungry men.

Suicide Pact doesnt just dazzle with its historical reach and depress with its unvarnished depiction of executive-branch power grabs; it provides a map for how we can all fight back and move into a future that delivers fully on individual freedom.

Even when I dont agree with him (a rare occurrence!), I learn more from Judge Napolitano than any other legal analyst and writer. If you care about your freedom, your country, and your future, read Suicide Pact and pass it along to everyone you know.

Nick Gillespie, Reason.tv; Reason.com

Also by Andrew P. Napolitano

Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When Government Breaks Its Own Laws

The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land

A Nation of Sheep

Dred Scotts Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America

Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History

It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom

The Freedom Answer Book

Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom

2014 by Andrew P. Napolitano

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Nelson Books and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7180-2194-8 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014950845

ISBN-13: 978-0-7180-2193-1

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This book is dedicated to James Conley Sheil, born in Newark, New Jersey, on May 25th 1964 and died in Little Falls, New Jersey, on March 19th 2013. He was the authors alter ego, constant companion, and patient teacher, who edited all the authors previous books while on earth and this present book from Heaven. Requiescat In Pace.

Contents

by Sen. Rand Paul

Government requires make-believe. Make believe that the king is divine, make believe that he can do no wrong or make believe that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Make believe that the people have a voice or make believe that the representatives of the people are the people. Make believe that governors are the servants of the people. Make believe that all men are equal or make believe that they are not.

EDMUND S. MORGAN

We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemys side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity, and a crusade for peace. Is it necessary for us at the height of our power to stoop to such self-deceiving nonsense?

WALTER LIPPMAN

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

JAMES MADISON

J udge Andrew P. Napolitano informs us that our government tells us noble lies to soften the blow of our loss of liberty. Its not that we are asked to trade our liberty for security, but that we are programmed through prevarication to believe that our protectors only have our best interest at heart.