There's No Difference Between Martial Law and the Threat of Martial Law

If a bully threatens to beat up a skinny kid if he doesn't give him his lunch money, and the bully doesn't have to follow through because the kid does fork it over, does that mean that the aggressive kid isn't a bully?

Of course not. He's a bully because he threatened to beat up the skinny kid and used coercion to get his way.


Well, Congressman Sherman said that congress was threatened with martial law this week. Specifically, he says that Congress was told martial law would be imposed if they didn't pass the Paulson bailout proposal.

Martial law means that the separation of powers which the Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution are destroyed, and an all-powerful executive branch calls the shots.

Is the threat of imposing martial law any different than actually imposing it?

No. Congress is just like the skinny kid.

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