Willful and intentional disregard for the US Constitution has been the name of the game in Washington for decades now. Scheming elected elites, having drunk from the wells of power, have become intoxicated by it.
Having finally circumvented the constitutional system of checks and balances, they ridicule citizens who call upon them to exercise restraint and wisdom. Former attorney general Edwin Meese put it well, regarding the current crop of political miscreants:
“Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.”
Citizen blow back: This condescending attitude, finally becoming intolerable to the average citizen, has given rise to the people’s movement of 2009-2010 known as the Tea Party.
Constitutionally focused and concerned about fiscal responsibility, this people’s movement is the natural response to the hated “ruler mentality” dominating government — unchecked spending, waste, fraud, deficit spending and unparalleled debt creation, and thousands of pages of unread legislation rammed through Congress with presidential approval at breakneck speed, late-night backroom deals ad infinitum.
Not only do we suffer the insults of congressmen and women who either can’t understand the US Constitution or do not care to in their striving to control the people through legislation, but for decades we have suffered from another kind of evil in the land…
Rulers de jour and law by decree: Reminiscent of mythological Gods toying with earthly subjects, evil is now dressed in robes of priestly sanctity, pontificating from their thrones high on Capitol Hill and picking which children to bless with their whim-of-the-day rulings from the hallowed halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Knowing all and all-powerful, they rule by “executive orders” and “regulatory policy” decrees which become de facto laws, completely making the constitutional process mute and irrelevant. These two dictatorial processes, in play since the early 1900’s, are worth serious study and review by our legislative and judicial branches. Becoming laws with the stroke of the pen, they also become weapons by the rulers de jour.
Clear and present dangers — vital considerations: The real dangers are not past but present, i.e. the ability by Barack Obama to enact law by decree or administrative fiat. Consider the following:
- On one hand, present-day congressional one-party rulers are content to use legislation, even if bills and laws violate the Constitution, as long as they are able to disguise their effort as constitutional.
- On the other hand, the chief executive, Barack Obama, has labeled the Constitution a “charter of negative liberties,” meaning it “restrains” what the government can do to you.
As a restraint, the Constitution’s checks and balances serve as a nuisance to these liberal-progressives seeking a radical “transformation of America as we know it.”
To the point: The president’s coterie of non-legal but appointed “czars” may create the set of laws by which states and individuals play, all the while chuckling as Congress uses legal constitutional methods to repeal or create laws which impact the general welfare of the American citizen.
The day may come that individual and state rights once guaranteed by the US Constitution are mere memories as they become diluted with illegal administrative rule, policy, and law created by elected and appointed federal government officials.
States and individual rights: States are left defenseless in the case of “ruler’s law” as executive orders or federal regulation may become, without another mechanism whereby they may fight unconstitutional overreach. (See Amendments 9, 10 & 14)
A new check is needed to right a ship of state turned upside down through licentious legislative sovereigns and executive department autocrats; privileges never intended by the framers of the Constitution.
The “Repeal Amendment”
“Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”
This language will be considered in January by the Virginia state legislature, and is just a beginning step to offset the rabid hunger of federal politicians of the liberal-progressive stripe seeking to not only circumvent constitutional processes but also destroy the US Constitution as the authoritative voice for governing.
For further enlightenment on the merits of a “repeal amendment,” I recommend the Cato Institute article by Randy Barnett & William J. Howell, which you can find here.
One need not be a constitutional scholar or legal mind to understand when something is out of sync with the framers’ intent. Any citizen can examine the facts of recent history and come to the conclusions that I have.
A “repeal amendment” adds a needed restraint in a day of legally inept and ethically unrestrained politicians seeking the destruction of the US Constitution, with state and individual rights therein guaranteed.
James Michael Pratt is a New York Times bestselling novelist and non-fiction author, CEO of PowerThink Publishing, public speaker, Op Ed writer for The Daily Caller, Founder of Reagan Revolution 2 and editor of popular US Constitution Coach Kit – Reagan Leadership Edition. Email: james@powerthink.com.