Opinion

What The President Learned In Kindergarten, He Forgot In Law School

Frank Edelblut Entrepreneur
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As parents, one of the first and most important lessons that we try to teach our children is that the ends do not justify the means, that ‘getting what you want’ is less important than going after it in the right way — even if that means that sometimes you don’t get what you want, or that it takes longer than you’d like.

But when it comes to politics, many of those same parents seem to believe that this old fashioned notion must be tossed aside if it gets in the way of progress. President Obama demonstrated this last week when he held a press conference detailing a number of executive actions that he was taking, presumably because he felt that progress against gun-related violence was being held up by the inconvenient fact that Article I, Section 1 of our Constitution assigns all legislative powers to Congress, and none to the President.

Much discussion since then has centered around whether these actions will be “effective” at reducing gun-related violence; or whether, even if ineffective, they are still important and necessary because they ‘send a message’ of one kind or another, about our concern, about our sincerity, and so on.

Unfortunately, very little discussion has centered around the much more important question of what it means — what effect it has, what message it sends — when the President decides that it’s unfair for Congress to keep all that legislative power to itself, and that he should have some of it too; and what it means for Congress, and the American people, to nod approvingly as he usurps that power.

Note that the President isn’t just tweaking some regulations penned by some faceless bureaucrat in the Executive branch. He is effectively rewriting sections of the Gun Control Act of 1968, a statute enacted by Congress, because while it says one thing, he wishes that it said something else, and wants to act on that wish.

Democrats are applauding his boldness. That’s to be expected. What’s unexpected is that Republicans are wasting a tremendous opportunity to show that they really believe in the concept of limited government by dealing with the root of the problem, instead of hacking away at some of the branches.

It’s not an accident that the architects of the Constitution followed the Federalist principle of Separation of Powers. They understood that in times of great emotion, the temptation to ‘do something, anything’ can be almost irresistible, and so they designed a government that would move slowly and deliberately, precisely so that short-sighted, momentary passion could be restrained by measured, thoughtful, forward-looking consideration; and so that we would, when feelings are in danger of overwhelming reason, be firmly reminded that governments are formed in order to protect rights, and that constitutions are written precisely to place out of the reach of government those ‘solutions’ that would undermine that purpose.

So what’s to be done about it? While there’s not much we can do at the federal level, we can perhaps do something here in New Hampshire. While it’s ludicrous to have to enact a law that effectively says the government of New Hampshire agrees to follow the Constitutions of the United States and of New Hampshire, it may also, given how far we’ve strayed from the basic ideas of limited constitutional government, be necessary.

For this reason, I have introduced legislation that would remind the people of New Hampshire that laws come only from Congress or the General Court of New Hampshire, and may not be forced on the people by any other body.

This is bigger than any particular issue, whether it’s guns, or education, or health care. This isn’t about whether we’ll have this law, or that law, but whether we’re going to have law at all. But before we can take this step, we have to answer this simple question: When we tell our children that the ends do not justify the means, are we lying to them? Or are we telling them the truth and lying to ourselves by allowing politicians to offer us ‘solutions’ with one hand, which require undermining the very concept of limited constitutional government with the other? I think you know my answer. I’d love to hear yours.

Frank Edelblut works in business, he is a State Representative (Hills. 38) and is a candidate for New Hampshire Governor. (FrankEdelblut.com) Ian Underwood, owner of Shaolin Rifleworks, contributed to this article.