Presidential Directive 51: Liberty on Hold

         It's been three months since you received that dreadful notification on your phone. At first you thought it was just another amber alert as the phone screamed in your pocket, you didn't even think it was all that weird that everyone else at the grocery store had the same alert going off. Its happens a lot, at least once a week. This time though the whole store went quiet for about thirty seconds until you could hear feet shuffling quickly down the aisle next to you, and then more. Then more. Soon enough the whole store was in a panic and people began to scream and cry, rushing out of the doors without paying. Ballistic missiles have just landed in five major U.S. cities. It wasn't long before you saw on the news that the President had activated National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51, of course you didn't know what it was or what it meant- no one did. All you knew was that the statement from the White House said to stay indoors except in emergencies and wait for local authorities to guide you though the next steps. Three months since and there is only electricity once or twice a week, running water for only an hour a day, a curfew that starts before dinner, and soldiers augmenting police officers. You don't speak unless spoken to, you wouldn't know what to say anyways as nothing makes sense anymore. "What just happened to my life?"

So what is this "National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51"? "Presidential Directive 51" or just plain "Directive 51" (as it is usually known) is a directive signed by President George W. Bush on May 4, 2007 and it is what you would call a "COG" plan. A plan designed to ensure the continuity of government for the United States in case of a catastrophic emergency. Okay so that doesn't sound so bad right? I mean why wouldn't you want the government to keep going if communications were down and nearly impossible to get news on events and situations around you? The problem we run into with continuity of government plans is the fact that they usually involve hardcore steps to ensure such continuity.
The United States of America was founded with the U.S. Constitution, a document that lays out everything you could need to know about how we run things here (for the most part). This document has many many amendments and a lot of amendments are to change previous amendments. Sounds wonderful, we have a founding document that can't be tampered with except when a bunch of big wigs decide to vote for a change. The constitution says we can say what we want, practice what religion we want, and think what we want. It even says if the government messes up and goes against the document it is our duty as citizens to take up arms and kick its ass.
Then after reading such document you get a bag thrown over your face, tied to a pole, flogged, humiliated, and then shot. That is the land of presidential directives and executive orders. The president along with many other office holders actually have the ability to create things that seem like laws but are extremely unconstitutional, things that make you want to take up arms and kick ass.
So now we have an idea of what all this is, let's look at when exactly this "directive 51" can be activated and hold on to your butts because this is scary. In the directive it states that it can be activated for:

"Any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

Now I put some of that in bold for emphasis because I want to elaborate a bit about those parts. First lets look at "any incident". Now that is pretty straight forward but I want you to keep it in your head throughout this explanation.
Okay now "regardless of location". This literally means anywhere in the world or I guess the Moon? (Space Force baby!!)
Next is "extraordinary" levels of chaos which in my opinion is very subjective. This basically means the government gets to decide what is extraordinary and what is benign.
Same goes for "severely". But oh boy let's talk about the "economy"! Basically what you are seeing is if a stock market crash occurs or a cyber attack wipes out bank accounts or what have you, they can drop the jack boot on us.
Directive 51 in a nutshell authorizes martial law in a country that has outlawed federal martial law. The Posse Comitatus Act tells us that the President doesn't get to use federal troops to enforce domestic policies within the U.S. The Insurrection Act says that the only way to use federal troops is if you have exhausted the use of state and local law enforcement.

   
So now we know about "National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51" but what does that mean for us as a society in the event the government decides we (they) are in trouble?
I brushed over a little scenario at the beginning but I'm sure you get the idea of what life under martial law is like. I strongly recommend watching movies like "Contagion", "28 Weeks Later", "Children of Men", or even "Escape From New York" for some dramatic interpretations of what it could be like. Of course you could just as easily look at other countries that have gone through civil wars and revolutions. Notably Ukraine and Syria.
The point I am trying to make is that the President for almost any reason can enact this directive and once Pandora's box is opened it can't be closed. The military will experience high desertion rates as well as law enforcement agencies. Diverting power to key government facilities away from the people would cause rolling blackouts which means we get to go back to the frontier days. Lack of independence of our citizens will cause looting for food and pharmaceuticals almost instantaneously. Neighborhood watches form carrying AR-15s and eventually RPGs. We live in a glass house here in the good ole U.S. of A. so we need to be very careful and tread very lightly when it comes to unleashing a directive like this regardless of the situation.
Sadly cooler heads never seem to prevail in our republic so I have a feeling we might actually get to witness at least some of what I have mentioned. War is Hell but Hell is warm and winter is approaching fast.