Yes, there is no drug abuse in dictatorships. It can also fix crime, obesity and all kinds of problems. But it's certainly not worth it.
I think a similar argument could be made about Lincoln. He too siezed unprecedented executive powers.
I'm not saying they were good or bad. I'm just trying to point out that we have had presidents that have taken extreme measures to deal with percieved crises. And we have, for the most part, interpreted this as a-ok.
Um, no. This is incorrect. Roosevelt's plans and projects were repeatedly frustrated by opposition in the other branches of government. That doesn't happen in dictatorships.
Much of the New Deal, for example, ended up being struck down by the Supreme Court. Roosevelt tried to prevent that from happening again by "packing" the Court with friendly justices (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_Reorganization_Bill_o...), but Congress shot that plan down. He desired for years before Pearl Harbor to get the US to join with the Allied powers in opposing German and Japanese expansionism, but the Neutrality Acts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrality_Acts_of_1930s) made it nearly impossible for him to provide any US support for the Allies at all. Even in 1941, after the fall of France and the Battle of Britain, Congress only agreed to extend the military draft instituted in 1940 by a single vote.
You can argue whether Roosevelt was in the right on any of the policy decisions he made, but you can't argue that he was operating without checks and balances, because he wasn't.
There were actual laws on the books long before FDR (some repealed and some not) that gave such authority to arrest and detain US citizens without trial or for controversial reasons. The first time in 1798[1] and the second in 1917[2] and the third and 1918[3]. If we're just talking about imprisoning without trial and not the rationale behind it, then even Abraham Lincoln is guilty of that[4]. Not that FDR is my favorite president, but the US Government has had a long history of abusing* power and bending the rules when it was considered critical by certain powers that be (regardless of political party and historical popularity of the politician). I just don't think one can single out FDR when it was already a precedent in times of war (and near war) to do so before him.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_Sta...
*Obviously open to interpretation and subjective
Dictatorships can do a lot of nasty things, but they cannot solve such problems. They may _look_ like they are able to, and they may _pretend_ that they solved these problems(especially if problems aren't easily noticeable by an average citizen. Take heavy heroin abuse as an example), but no, they can't and won't solve them.