This reply was taken from my Substack

THEY NEVER DECLARED WAR!!!!! SO MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE THIS LIE.

I always thought it was one of those officially - unofficial type things, and with the current state of Constitutional violations by our own government you can easily see it through the lens of at least it was something but technically you are correct.

I think what he is saying is that from our context viewing the two "authorizations of war" under War Powers by Congress would suffice as a declaration of war or at least fit the bill for a somewhat more justified engagement of the process under the framers intent.

Where you're coming from is also correct however; specifically, that there has been no "formal declaration of war" since WWII like I said, and that the War Powers Act itself is a subversion of the Constitution's original process intent. Indeed War Powers itself might be unconstitutional and it's been questioned at the highest levels of our Courts before. Technically speaking it is NOT a "declaration of war" but rather "an authorization of use of military force" .... you're both right.

While using a different approach to justify the use of military action than Article 1 Section 8 the layman argument would be that AT LEAST it is Congress as the governing body who decides in the perspective that declaring war IS an enumerated power given to Congress alone, good enough. Of course that itself is argued and the original intent could be for POTUS & Congress to both have some power over enacting war because of POTUS role as CiC and to defend the nation from attack. Or you can see the President merely as the Supreme commander, responsible for all decisions relating to commission of war once it is decided upon by Congress but not before.

However, from the strict view, it may be a violation and bastardization of the Constitution itself, because War Powers derives its authority from Necessary and Proper. While still regarding the Congress as the body that should ultimately approve of the country becoming involved in War, they presumed to strengthen the Constitution and the framers intent while making it necessary for the President to seek approval of any new engagements from the Legislature. Outwardly it was sold as bolstering our ability to prevent future conflict by reasserting where that power belonged, but underneath that, the mechanics greatly reduced the threshold needed to qualify and approve new conflicts while creating a slippery slope where POTUS/Exec gained all control over the creation of new conflicts themselves. In essence it allowed POTUS to become chief maker of war instead of simply presiding over wars already in existence, by Congress "authorizing" as a second step rather than "declaring" as the first. Everything everywhere became a necessity to Commander-in-Chief's responsibility to defend the homeland and like a child bringing candy to Mom in the store, the Executive branch had unbridled energy in seeking out conflicts across the globe, all of which were necessary and proper to defense of our country against more and more imagined threats.

The lower hurdle of authorization vs. declaration changed the whole bent of it from defense to offense. By lowering the bar for what constituted as war and what boxes needed checking before our engagement of military was allowed we ensured that there would be no more wars and endless isolated conflicts, boundless in their scope and length, removed from trivial things like national borders and recognitons of sovereignty. This has all served the military industrial complex immensely and lent itself to the unfettered, unchecked growth of intelligence agencies and their powers of espionage as the primary means of control and power against foreign enemies as well as Domestic relations between governments and citizens. The Orwellian nature of our modern world has risen out of the endless conflict continuation; indeed, after the ubiquitous "Terror" was recently defeated, it seems that there's no where else left to go except to wage war on one's own citizenry, who've grown increasingly cognizant of the hypocrisy and erosion of their lawless state.

Nixon vetoed War Powers originally but Congress overrode him. Ironically at the time it seemed as though the President was trying to retain power over the military and framed as such by the lying news media, but in the long view War Powers itself has lead to unchecked growth in POTUS/executive power and action in preemptive and wanton use of military force without proper consent of Congress. Nixon was trying to limit the massive increases in executive power that have allowed subsequent Admins. to engage in endless, wanton conflicts around the globe. War Powers has given the Executive more power and authority to continually justify and engage in military actions almost ceaselessly and has reduced the Congress role in presiding over uses of military force and controlling the constant growth of our involvement in conflicts globally. Quite simply War Powers led to a new engagement every year since it began. The lower hurdle of "authorization" and redefining of "war" separate from "engagement" "armed conflict" "peacekeeping" and other such reductive language as being of lesser magnitudes somehow than "total war" and containing a different meaning has been fundamental to the erosion of the boundaries between the branches themselves as well as obfuscation of which body has legal authority and what to do if violations occur.

Clinton's decision to airstrike Kosovo in 1999 without even a written permission from Congress and the creation of AUMF (used 35 times by Bush & Obama, just twice by Trump) have further collapsed the Constitutional framework for legal authority to authorize military action and we've been left with a system that never declares war because everything is POTUS and the exec branch 'defending' the USA from nebulous, effervescent enemies who no longer even are said to reside in a specific country. Indeed War Powers itself is something of a relic; another [DS] tool created for purposes of reducing and stymieing the final authority and ultimate power to decide for ourselves, bestowed unto us by our Creator and unleashed onto the world by our Founding Fathers, who so wisely and presciently understood that the awesome power of the people, coming together to engage democratically in a balanced, tempered Constitutional Republic, and trade their wares and talents for their best price in a free and equal marketplace was the single greatest method of advancing human progress and enriching human life and society. As with all their methods of stripping that power from its rightful place to hoard it and use for themselves, they had to enact it by undermining and subversive means - because the only way to retain such power is if We the People, unaware and misled, give away their free will and put on their shackles with a smile. This is the only way you can ensure you'll keep that which doesn't belong to you.

So War Powers is an interesting ones to look back at for that reason. Though mostly obsolete now, having been outmoded by AUMF and shirked by Clinton in '99 and Obama in 2011 as we mentioned previously, it serves as a reminder of how the these alterations to the original foundation, said to fit the times and preserve the intentions, are often made to do just the opposite. In the world of 1973, where the President was reviled and excoriated for over extensions of the office's purview and power grabs, the citizenry was sold a bill of goods that would supposedly limit and prevent further such uses of the office. In hindsight it did the inverse, creating roadmaps and incentives to endless conflict creation and ensuring never ending profit streams for those who made weapons of war and kickbacks for the political class who would lobby to send us into the fray. The nightmares of Vietnam laid out into plain view by the media to stoke fear and drive it to an all time high in the country ensured a willingness to sacrifice liberty for security.

Nixon, like Trump was vilified as a megalomaniac, unscrupulous control freak who had designs on ultimate power and would happily create a totalitarian state to ensure it. The sad, painful reality is that he was a complicated man who was crucified and made into a patsy for a mistake - one which was not a trick he invented himself nor uncommon in that day or any other. The public was goaded into seeing him as a threat that needed neutralizing and safeguards placed on his office to ensure the mistakes were never repeated. Ironically, Nixon's ideals, like Trump's, were ones of limiting executive control and reduce the size of Federal government and regulation, and curbing the ever-expanding control of the beast over the States and their people. Both of them grew government and used policy and tools they didn't agree with ideologically, both of them made mistakes for sure. Nixon was responsible for Bretton-Woods and modern welfare after all. I'd argue however that both did what they did because they believed truly it was in the best interests of the country at the time. They took an active approach to solving problems and crises. Nixon, like Trump worked to limit Federal government's regulatory capture and size as well as executive power and foresaw the consequences of things like War Powers. Trump, despite media portrayals, greatly respected the limitations of the Office and worked to build a Constitutionalist Supreme Court, deregulated and dismantled the administrative state as much as he could, and oversaw the first real growth in the U.S. economy since 2007, after which was in a deep recession papered over with pithy nominal gains and redefined metrics.

Interesting then that they were both subverted by their own people working against them from within, both convicted of trying to become Supreme rulers and overthrow our government by the Mockingbird media, both ousted or attempts made. Trump was spied on and falsely framed as a Russian double agent. Nixon was instead accused of spying on his competition and framed up (despite his overwhelming chances of re-election).

So I guess what I'm getting at is have we finally learned our lesson? We bought the Nixon story and sold the Trump one. We allowed them to loosen our grasp on power with the Act in 1973, and back then people worried about this enough that they at least had to have Congress as a pretext. Nowadays as they run about totally unchecked and no longer even care enough to sloppily justify it, have we finally gotten tired of the war, death, lies, and theft? Is life getting so bad that we finally woke up to care and say no more?

I sincerely hope so.