Meanwhile, King Obama…
…grants audiences to his supplicants:
The go-it-alone approach has left the [Obama] administration ”” which claims to be the most transparent in United States history ”” essentially making policy from the White House, replacing congressional hearings and floor debates with closed meetings for invited constituencies.
”‹We don’t hear much lately about the administration’s planned executive action on immigration “reform,” but rest assured it is continuing apace. Along with Obamacare it is the cornerstone, the central goal, of Obama’s transformative leftist domestic policy.
According to Republican Jeff Sessions:
It is chilling to consider now that these groups, frustrated in their aims by our constitutional system of government, are plotting with the Obama administration to collect their spoils through executive fiat.
The opposition can challenge this through legal means after the fact (because an impeachment and conviction of Obama is politically impossible at the moment), and the delay in Obama’s announcement of action on immigration has come mainly from the fact that lawyers have been engaged in attempting to craft a move that will be able to withstand a legal challenge by Republicans.
If you look at the comments to the article in the NY Times, you’ll see many people defending the president’s action with statements such as this one, “Thank you President Obama for having the guts to stand up to our Do-Nothing Congress.” If you ever wondered how tyrants get away with what they do, wonder no more. “The ends justifies the means” is a principle in which many people believe, as long as the ends are their own desired ends, or the ends they’ve been told to think are good ones.
I haven’t seen seen any theories on how to stop Executive Orders on immigration.
Declaratory judgment?
The breath-taking extent to which people can be so short-sighted is astonishing. Do they not understand the principle of Pandora’s box, the slippery slope, the give an inch and take a mile – and, most obviously, whatever power they grant to the president of their own party they are granting to any future opposition president?
Doing things their way (i.e. having Obama do whatever the hell he wants) is not a way to make the Republicans lose, it’s a way to make us all lose. What do they think the long-term effect of eviscerating Congressional power is going to be? Do they want to give up any say they might have in making future laws? Are they that stupid? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be “yes”.
So I’ll say it one more time, more directly: “Morons, you’re destroying your own power as citizens and your future. Whatever happens to the Republicans is just a side effect compared to what you’ll be losing.”
kcom:
I think that at least some of them are not so very stupid at all. They think these moves will make it so that the opposition never gets power again. Then all the extra power will be exercised for “good,” and by the right people, for the right reasons. And those right people will remain in power forever, doing good stuff.
Or, the person advocating it imagines he/she will be the one to get the power forever, not just other people doing it on his/her behalf.
They think they will be able to stand upright in the wind that would blow:
It will be an f5 tornado wind.
“If you look at the comments to the article in the NY Times, you’ll see many people defending the president’s action with statements such as this one, “Thank you President Obama for having the guts to stand up to our Do-Nothing Congress.
If you ever wondered how tyrants get away with what they do, wonder no more. “The ends justifies the means” is a principle in which many people believe, as long as the ends are their own desired ends, or the ends they’ve been told to think are good ones.”
“They think these moves will make it so that the opposition never gets power again. Then all the extra power will be exercised for “good,” and by the right people, for the right reasons. And those right people will remain in power forever, doing good stuff. Or, the person advocating it imagines he/she will be the one to get the power forever”
“So This Is How Liberty Dies…With Thunderous Applause”
“Political ideas that have dominated the public mind for decades cannot be refuted through rational arguments. They must run their course in life and cannot collapse otherwise than in great catastrophe…” Ludwig von Mises
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship” – Alexander Tytler 1787
The founding fathers knew of this danger of course and sought to nullify it by creating a representative republic with a written Constitution with the checks and balances of a tri-cameral government.
Unfortunately, they could not foresee Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Paulo Freire and Saul Alinsky. The left’s four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Neo – For me, this post precisely captures what’s at risk in our country and in its political and social and economic future…it may be my favorite of yours ever and typifies why I enjoy your blog so much. Thanks.
“If you ever wondered how tyrants get away with what they do, wonder no more”.
After WWII my parents were living in West Germany as Polish refugees while waiting for visas go elsewhere. My mother needed an overcoat for the winter, so, money being worthless, my father went to a tailor and bought her one with a few bottles of vodka. He and the tailor decided to sample the goods and started talking. My father, who very much admired German science and their culture generally, asked how could a nation that appeared to be so civilized follow an evil monster like Hitler. The tailor’s answer was quite simple, there was one big Hitler because there were many, many little Hitlers.
“Thank you President Obama for having the guts to stand up to our Do-Nothing Congress.”
And yet he won’t stand up to ISIS. Been reading some more about it and it’s too depressing and scary for me to even link.
Worst. President. Ever. Christ, I hope we can just survive until he gets out of office.
Not for nothing did Benjamin Franklin make his famous “a republic, madam — if you can keep it” remark.
Special interest groups, especially those of the rent-seeking variety are now in control. There are still some members of Congress who know that the government has no money. That the money comes from the people and the economy. With the progs holding control of the Senate, none of the bills to reduce spending or the size of government can get a hearing. Yes, there are some: (HT Belmont Club)
“-H.R. 243 (Ross, R-Fla.) would extend the freeze on federal employee pay through the end of calendar year 2015 and would require deep cuts in the federal workforce.
-H.Con. Res. 96 (Ryan, R-Wis.) The House Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2015 contains $125 billion in cuts to federal retirement programs. It would require federal employees to contribute close to 6% more toward their retirement, would limit agencies to hiring only one employee for every three that leave, end the FERS supplement and phase out the defined benefit annuity portion of the federal retirement system, leaving only TSP. Would eliminate repayment by government of student loans for federal employees.
-H.R. 1780 (Camp, R-Mich.) would require most federal employees to leave the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and instead join health plans established under the Affordable Care Act.
-H.R. 237 (Marino, R-Pa.) would impose a hiring freeze on the federal government until the budget deficit has been eliminated.
-H.R. 824 (Lummis, R-Wyo.) would require that the total number of federal employees does not exceed a maximum number spelled out in the legislation for each quarter of each calendar year. Reductions in the number of federal employees, if required, would be made through attrition and a freeze on hiring.
-H.R. 1541 (Meadows, R-N.C.) would place limitations on the amount of awards or other discretionary monetary payments that can be paid to federal employees”
The assumption of the progs is that the Congress should just rubber stamp the spending and more government programs so the celebration of “positive rights” can continue. Failure to do so is to become a “do-nothing” Congress. The President is then forced, forced they tell us, to act on his own. Those who accept that thesis are our many, many little Hitlers.
America was a republic, then became a so called democracy under Democrats, then become an oligarchy de facto, and now we’re progressed straight to New Aristocracy and Monarchy of Divine Right legend.
Way to go. What’s next?