An international thief for president?

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All right, I am now officially nervous about a Donald Trump presidential campaign. Actually, "nervous" might be too mild a description. "Frightened" is perhaps more accurate. I'll be scared to death if it looks like he might possibly win.

Why the fear, you ask? The reasons are many. But here's one that ought to scare everyone:  he is a thief at heart.

Let me explain.

The power of eminent domain is a power the government has to appropriate private property for public use provided the owner is compensated according to the market value of the property. The power is mentioned - and limited - in the Fifth Amendment. By "public use" we should understand use by the government in carrying out its duties as enumerated by the Constitution. But in recent years, as we have moved further and further from the original meaning and intent of our founding documents, eminent domain has been used to transfer private property from one private citizen to another for the purpose of economic development. The Donald has attempted more than once to use this power for his own personal profit.

And now for the scary part. Last week he was a guest of Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, who asked him about Obama's doings with respect to the goings-on in Libya. Did the President do the right thing in authorizing the cruise missile strikes? Should the U.S. do more to help the rebels? What would he do if he were president?  
“I would go in and take the oil — I would just go in and take the oil. We don’t know who the rebels are, we hear they come from Iran, we hear they’re influenced by Iran or al-Qaida, and, frankly I would go in, I would take the oil — and stop this baby stuff."
What in the world is he thinking? On what grounds should we "just go in and take the oil"? It doesn't belong to us. To "just go in and take it" would be nothing less than an act of thievery on an international scale.

And another thing. Would he first seek to gain Congressional approval before going to war? He seems to assume that if he were president he could simply act on his own. But the Constitution requires a declaration of war by Congress before the president commits troops for war (Art. I. Sec. 8).

I have been astonished at the enthusiastic support he's received as a potential GOP presidential candidate. He's currently tied with Mike Huckabee for first place in a CNN poll. My hope is that his rising popularity has more to do with his blunt manner of speaking - which I have to admit I find rather refreshing in an age when candidates can blather on for hours and leave you wondering what they actually mean - and less to do with who he is and what he stands for. I just hope that with the 2012 elections so far off there will be plenty of time for people to actually consider what a Trump presidency would mean and why it would be a disaster.

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