Posted on 04/07/2012 9:19:09 AM PDT by raptor22
Power: Given the president's end-runs around Congress, his shredding of the Constitution and his assault on the authority of the courts, a second term free of electoral restraints may be a frightening prospect.
Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News commentator, raised the question on Neil Cavuto's "Your World" show Wednesday. And while it seems fanciful in light of the safeguards built into our democracy and its institutions, it recognizes the threat posed by the president's policies and actions if left unchecked.
"I think the president is dangerously close to totalitarianism," Napolitano opined. "A few months ago he was saying, 'The Congress doesn't count, the Congress doesn't mean anything, I am going to rule by decree and by administrative regulation.'
"Now he's basically saying the Supreme Court doesn't count. It doesn't matter what they think. They can't review our legislation. That would leave just him as the only branch of government standing."
Some would consider this borderline hyperbole. But this is, after all, a president who has said he can't wait for Congress to act and will govern by executive order and regulations if necessary. He has questioned the Supreme Court's "unprecedented" review of ObamaCare.
As the Department of Justice turned in its homework assignment on the judicial review of the constitutionality of laws, it was a reminder that this is an administration that's already been found in contempt of court by a federal judge.
In February of last year, Louisiana Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman found that the Obama Interior Department was in contempt of his ruling that the offshore oil drilling moratorium, imposed by the administration in 2010, was unconstitutional. After Feldman struck down the initial drilling ban, the Interior Department simply established a second ban that was virtually identical.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
That depends upon what the meaning of “Close” is.
Treason ping
Yes.
The checks and balances built-in to our system are not being utilized.
The Courts need to SMACK him down. Decide cases based on the constitution.
The Congress needs to SMACK him down. Provide funding for only the things Congress approves.
He’s taking everything you let him have. STOP HIM.
Nearly everyone is afraid to attack Obama out of fear of being labeled racist.
Sucks that no one cares.
Now go pay your taxes. Your hard working government needs the money. :)
/sarc(????)
If SCOTUS overturns Obamacare and Obama ignores their ruling, it’ll be pretty clear at that point. This is why FREEPERS MUST DO EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER TO HELP GET HIM OUT OF THE WH IN NOVEMBER!
We are on the cusp.
There’s something unflattering about spineless RINO kissing constituent ass. They usually come across as the liars we know they are. So as far as I’m concerned, they should withhold their often clumsy and gratuitous insults.
Obama’s sufficiently denigrating himself.
And how do we do that? Vote for Romney?
I don’t know what other options we have. We are screwed.
Agreed.
But I will hate voting for Romney (if I do) with every fiber of my being. : (
Until then, I will make it as difficult for Romney as possible. He is a Progressive by his own admission. He can’t articulate even the simplest ideas of Capitalism, Free Market, Freedom, Independence and Liberty. That worries me greatly.
The “racist” tag is going to lose it’s power soon, IMO. People are getting sick to death of it.
The whole federal government is. It has crept that way since 1989 at slower or faster pace under one POTUS and Congress or another, but never without steady encroachments. Obama is a mere pustule. The federal system is the pox. Treat the disease and not the symptom.
He is a Progressive by his own admission. He can’t articulate even the simplest ideas of Capitalism, Free Market, Freedom, Independence and Liberty. That worries me greatly.
****************************
As the old tale goes: “You knew I was a snake when you picked me up.”
Want to know where Obama’s 13 year-old daughter is right now with 12 friends?
On spring break in Oaxaca Mexico, on your dime.
She took two jets and 25 secret service men.
A thirteen year-old?
Why haven’t you heard about it?
The Obama Administration has had the Secret Service scouring the web ordering that any website mentioning this be taken down because letting the travel plans out could endanger the president’s daughter’s security.
Nonsense, the “royal couple” just want to hide the way they are ripping off the U. S. taxpayer. Only a few Canadian Web-sites still have it up. (both below)
The Obama’s are laughing at the “suckers” who are funding their Imperial Lifestyle.
This trip will cost more than most Americans make in their entire lifetimes.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/travel/Obama+daughter+spends+spring+break+Mexico/6323773/story.html
http://www.wtam.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=104668&article=9921576
The Constitution is nothing but an outworn piece of paper, unless the the government respects it, the judges obey it, and/or the people defend it.
Unfortunately, about the only American history being taught in the Public Schools for the past generation or two is how the white guys killed the Indians, enslaved the blacks, and colonized and plundered the Third World. Inalienable rights? What’s that?
And as the Democrats increasingly ignore the Constitution, the Republican Establishment is glad to help them out.
When Obama started a war with Libya without consulting with congress or the people, what did Boner do? Write a letter, which the press ignored and he never followed up on. McCain and Gramnesty were busy cheering for Obama’s war and urging him to start more wars—on the wrong side.
Government Motors? No comment, and no resistance. Fast and Furious? Boner tells Issa to lay off.
Does Romney respect the Constitution any more than Obama? I think not. He’s a budding god with his own planet, he doesn’t need no stinkin’ Constitution.
So-called "progressives" (in terms of liberty, their ideas are regressive) of both political Parties have promoted the idea that America, under its Constitution's structuring of government, is a "democracy." By this, and by outright censorship of the founding ideas from the nation's textbooks, many citizen/voters may not understand their Constitution's protections.
A people who do not understand the why's behind the Framers of the Constitution rejecting the idea of "democracy" in favor of "republic" may allow a majority of constitutionally-illiterate voters to respond favorably to a potential tyrant who wishes to bypass their Constitution's division/separation/limits on power in order to "give" them what he promises.
Despite the well-recorded declarations to the contrary, by America's Founders and Framers of its Constitution, as well as its early historians and others, that myth may have prepared us for the abuses we are witnessing today.
Franklin's response upon leaving the Convention, "A republic, if you can keep it," are famous.
John Adams' son, John Quincy, was 9 when the Declaration of Independence was written, 20 when the Constitution was framed, and from his teen years, served in various capacities in both the Legislative and Executive branches of the government, including as President. His words on this subject should be instructive on the subject at hand.
In 1839, he was invited by the New York Historical Society to deliver the "Jubilee" Address honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Inauguration of George Washington. He delivered that lengthy discourse which should be read by all who love liberty, for it traced the history of the development of the ideas underlying and the actions leading to the establishment of the Constitution which structured the United States government. His 50th-year summation seems to be a better source for understanding the kind of government the Founders formed than those of recent historians and politicians. He addresses the ideas of "democracy" and "republic" throughout, but here are some of his concluding remarks:
"Every change of a President of the United States, has exhibited some variety of policy from that of his predecessor. In more than one case, the change has extended to political and even to moral principle; but the policy of the country has been fashioned far more by the influences of public opinion, and the prevailing humors in the two Houses of Congress, than by the judgment, the will, or the principles of the President of the United States. The President himself is no more than a representative of public opinion at the time of his election; and as public opinion is subject to great and frequent fluctuations, he must accommodate his policy to them; or the people will speedily give him a successor; or either House of Congress will effectually control his power. It is thus, and in no other sense that the Constitution of the United States is democratic - for the government of our country, instead of a Democracy the most simple, is the most complicated government on the face of the globe. From the immense extent of our territory, the difference of manners, habits, opinions, and above all, the clashing interests of the North, South, East, and West, public opinion formed by the combination of numerous aggregates, becomes itself a problem of compound arithmetic, which nothing but the result of the popular elections can solve.
"It has been my purpose, Fellow-Citizens, in this discourse to show:-
"1. That this Union was formed by a spontaneous movement of the people of thirteen English Colonies; all subjects of the King of Great Britain - bound to him in allegiance, and to the British empire as their country. That the first object of this Union,was united resistance against oppression, and to obtain from the government of their country redress of their wrongs.
"2. That failing in this object, their petitions having been spurned, and the oppressions of which they complained, aggravated beyond endurance, their Delegates in Congress, in their name and by their authority, issued the Declaration of Independence - proclaiming them to the world as one people, absolving them from their ties and oaths of allegiance to their king and country - renouncing that country; declared the UNITED Colonies, Independent States, and announcing that this ONE PEOPLE of thirteen united independent states, by that act, assumed among the powers of the earth, that separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitled them.
"3. That in justification of themselves for this act of transcendent power, they proclaimed the principles upon which they held all lawful government upon earth to be founded - which principles were, the natural, unalienable, imprescriptible rights of man, specifying among them, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - that the institution of government is to secure to men in society the possession of those rights: that the institution, dissolution, and reinstitution of government, belong exclusively to THE PEOPLE under a moral responsibility to the Supreme Ruler of the universe; and that all the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed.
"4. That under this proclamation of principles, the dissolution of allegiance to the British king, and the compatriot connection with the people of the British empire, were accomplished; and the one people of the United States of America, became one separate sovereign independent power, assuming an equal station among the nations of the earth.
"5. That this one people did not immediately institute a government for themselves. But instead of it, their delegates in Congress, by authority from their separate state legislatures, without voice or consultation of the people, instituted a mere confederacy.
"6. That this confederacy totally departed from the principles of the Declaration of independence, and substituted instead of the constituent power of the people, an assumed sovereignty of each separate state, as the source of all its authority.
"7. That as a primitive source of power, this separate state sovereignty,was not only a departure from the principles of the Declaration of Independence, but directly contrary to, and utterly incompatible with them.
"8. That the tree was made known by its fruits. That after five years wasted in its preparation, the confederation dragged out a miserable existence of eight years more, and expired like a candle in the socket, having brought the union itself to the verge of dissolution.
"9. That the Constitution of the United States was a return to the principles of the Declaration of independence, and the exclusive constituent power of the people. That it was the work of the ONE PEOPLE of the United States; and that those United States, though doubled in numbers, still constitute as a nation, but ONE PEOPLE.
"10. That this Constitution, making due allowance for the imperfections and errors incident to all human affairs, has under all the vicissitudes and changes of war and peace, been administered upon those same principles, during a career of fifty years.
"11. That its fruits have been, still making allowance for human imperfection, a more perfect union, established justice, domestic tranquility, provision for the common defence, promotion of the general welfare, and the enjoyment of the blessings of liberty by the constituent people, and their posterity to the present day.
"And now the future is all before us, and Providence our guide."
In an earlier paragraph, he had stated:
"But this institution was republican, and even democratic. And here not to be misunderstood, I mean by democratic, a government, the administration of which must always be rendered comfortable to that predominating public opinion . . . and by republican I mean a government reposing, not upon the virtues or the powers of any one man - not upon that honor, which Montesquieu lays down as the fundamental principle of monarchy - far less upon that fear which he pronounces the basis of despotism; but upon that virtue which he, a noble of aristocratic peerage, and the subject of an absolute monarch, boldly proclaims as a fundamental principle of republican government. The Constitution of the United States was republican and democratic - but the experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived; and it was obvious that if virtue - the virtue of the people, was the foundation of republican government, the stability and duration of the government must depend upon the stability and duration of the virtue by which it is sustained."
(Underlining added for emphasis)
At one time, I thought that all the three governmental branches jealously guarded their power and authority. The Congress has voluntarily abdicated its responsibility and so has at least 1/3 of the Judiciary to the Executive Branch.
There in lies the problem. Those who have the power to stop him using constitutional checks and balances do not want to stop him. Power is the holy grail of the new normal. Freedom is not.
Ping.
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