"Worse than this - even if he wants to have these as the highest ideals, he wants to throw them away by giving all the power to one leader at the top."Ginof, I noticed the use of Bagehot in Harris, and so I looked at some cursory material and found a quote that might shed some light on this."So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable."It is from Bagehot's Physics and Politics, ch. 2, sct. 3 (1872) quoted by The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. www.bartleby.com/66/52/5152.htmlThe idea in times of great upheaval free peoples would place power in the hands of a single man is far from obscure in history. SENATUS CONSULTUM ULTIMUM and Dictatorship were far from unknown in the Roman Republic. The use of Martial Law in times of crisis in American History is not unknown when the war front is on American soil as in the War of 1812 and the Civil War. Lincoln even suspended Haebeus Corpus for years. FDR sanctioned the mass imprisonment of Americans, even the use of torture on German POWs in certain instances. JFK and RFK pushed the use of COINTELPRO against the KKK and approved of wiretapping MLK. Even if we take the (first) Adams and Jefferson administrations use of the Alien & Sedition Acts. Jefferson actually used a Bill of Attainder during the Revolution, one of the actions for which King George is condemned for by Jefferson. By historical comparison, the Patriot Act is tame compared to the actions of FDR and Lincoln who we do not detest, in fact, they both have memorials in DC.