Chris
06-22-2012, 09:05 AM
Mr. Executive Power (http://reason.com/archives/2012/06/21/mr-executive-power)
The greatest crisis of American democracy is not getting your way.
And when a sluggish republic hinders progress, it's time to act. Just ask Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who advanced an astonishing argument the other day on the Senate floor: The president, explained Reid, is free to unilaterally craft immigration policy because we've tried to do that for years, and we can't because they won't let us.
Ah, they.
For those of you who have forgotten, in "The Federalist," Paper 51, Publius writes: "In a republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. ... Then again, if 'they don't let you,' well, feel free to disregard the previous 900,000 words."
Today's Democratic logic goes like this: If Congress is unable to pass progressive agenda items with a simple majority of legislators (and thankfully, that's the case), the vote of a single person will do just fine. President Obama is, after all, on his "We Can't Wait" tour. "We can't wait for Congress to do its job," Obama told supporters on a recent campaign stop. "So where they won't act, I will. We're going to look every single day to figure out what we can do without Congress."
That's the spirit!....
What we have is the rule of man, one man, not the rule of law.
The greatest crisis of American democracy is not getting your way.
And when a sluggish republic hinders progress, it's time to act. Just ask Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who advanced an astonishing argument the other day on the Senate floor: The president, explained Reid, is free to unilaterally craft immigration policy because we've tried to do that for years, and we can't because they won't let us.
Ah, they.
For those of you who have forgotten, in "The Federalist," Paper 51, Publius writes: "In a republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. ... Then again, if 'they don't let you,' well, feel free to disregard the previous 900,000 words."
Today's Democratic logic goes like this: If Congress is unable to pass progressive agenda items with a simple majority of legislators (and thankfully, that's the case), the vote of a single person will do just fine. President Obama is, after all, on his "We Can't Wait" tour. "We can't wait for Congress to do its job," Obama told supporters on a recent campaign stop. "So where they won't act, I will. We're going to look every single day to figure out what we can do without Congress."
That's the spirit!....
What we have is the rule of man, one man, not the rule of law.