Executive Order 13603

Executive Order 13603 means two things, depending on the person. In LoonyLand, it gave Obama permission to take away anything he wants, including private property.[1] In RealityVille, reading the whole goddamn thing shows otherwise.[2]

Some dare call it
Conspiracy
What THEY don't want
you to know!
Sheeple wakers
v - t - e

Worst Possible Interpretation, Dept.

Of course, internet crackpots imagined that the purpose of the Order was to take their house, their pickup truck and their guns, and then put them to work as slave labor. The boring truth is that Obama's Order was simply building on a previous bill called the "Defense Production Act", which allows the government to control vital resources to ramp up defense industry production (such as it did during WWII) if the country is suddenly faced with a serious national emergency, real or imagined,[note 1]e.g. attack by aliens, global war, etc.

For example, it could require Elon Musk to stop producing Tesla cars and start building military vehicles as fast as possible. Or it could require Microsoft to commit a sizeable number of resources to work at breaking an enemy code. If some company is sitting on a big supply of steel needed for war production, it allows the government to acquire the supply, and dictate the price it will pay for it. And if a scientist whose work is crucial to some new defense program is identified, the government could "draft" them to work on it. Again, most all of this was actually done during WWII, and few grumbled about it.

Also, the Defense Production Act was not new, and Obama didn't invent it. It's been in effect since the Truman Administration, and is routinely restated or added to by every new administration. Obama's restatement granted no authority to the President or the Cabinet that they didn’t already have under existing law.[3]

Another Trump win?

It appears that the looniest in Looneyland have recently noticed that Obama's order is still in effect under Trump,[4] which could indicate that Loony opinion will soon shift in favor of the Order.

gollark: +rule apizzz oarzzz aczz
gollark: +rule apinof oarorm achzzz
gollark: +rule apizzz oarzzz achzzz nofzzz ormzzz
gollark: +rule apizzz ofozzz rmzzzz
gollark: +rule apio arachn oform

Notes
  1. Under some administrations, this could be supposedly lethal waves of Mexican immigrants.

References
  1. GOVT.CAN TAKE ANYTHING FROM US.EXEC ORDER 13603. EVEN MILITARY CONSCRIPTION'S YouTube
  2. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13603,
  3. Hyped-up response to the NDRP held that President Obama issued an executive order giving the President "unprecedented powers in time of national emergency." Snopes.com
  4. Obama Executive Order 13603 Authorizes Slavery In The US
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