Is it too Late to Restore Constitutional Order?

[Jim Delaney]

Though the first sentence in Article II of the Constitution provides that “ executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”, none of the Framers or Ratifiers at any time suggested that this sentence would grant any authority beyond those specific powers enumerated in Sections 2 and 3. 

In short, presidential powers are well-defined and limited to faithfully executing the laws passed by Congress and, with studious and proper legislative oversight, to preside over foreign affairs. A Chief Executive's violating these obligations was determined by the Founders to be a “breach of trust” and, therefore, grounds for impeachment and removal from office.

 

Clearly, over the years, Executive powers under both Democrat and Republican chief executives have grown exponentially to the extent that the range of those exercised powers would stagger our republican Founders. (That said, the extent to which Barack Obama has usurped authority is beyond staggering. His actions in this regard have been inarguably and verifiably impeachable, and it is my guess that should Republicans sweep both the House and Senate in November, this President, if re-elected, will most certainly face impeachment and removal from office. And despite the civil unrest that might result from such a remedial action, this is precisely what our Founders and the Constitution which they crafted would have demanded.)

So, how did this dangerous expansion of presidential powers come to pass? Very simply, because government , a creature of human nature, is predisposed to expanding its authority and power. And in designing the Constitution, the Framers were painfully aware of and warned against this natural predisposition toward centralization and, ulitmately, tyranny. But, despite their warnings, we've allowed ourselves to slip into the clutches of Statism and lawlessness.

For whatever reason--much of it having to do with the enormous growth in the federal government and its expansion into areas never envisioned by the Founders or sanctioned by the Constitution--Congress has ceded or otherwise delegated enormous powers to the Executive Branch and, by extension, to that branch’s officers and departments. The catastrophic result of this congressional delegation of powers and judicial consent is twofold: an imperial presidency and an essentially unchecked Fourth Branch of government, that being the nearly omnipotent federal bureaucracy which, in a real sense, manages our increasingly unwieldy and intrusive federal government apparatus.

 

Thus, we must now accept the crystal-clear reality that “throwing the bums out” in Congress is no longer a viable remedy to our big government ills; it is merely a desperate, shortsighted and delusional reformist’s rallying cry “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. In truth, only if the wings of the Executive Branch are clipped and the unbridled Fourth Branch which runs Leviathan is downsized and more properly supervised by Congress can genuine constitutional order be restored.

 

Tragically, what NO ONE has been talking about in this campaign is the need to reign in BOTH the Executive Branch and Leviathan’s runaway bureaucracy which have been eating away at the very vitals of our republic. In short, only by deliberately restricting presidential powers to those which faithfully comport with the Constitution, and both eliminating or drastically minimizing the power of the Fourth Branch of government can our inexorable slide toward tyranny be arrested.

 

Toward that end, I propose that Congress convene a blue-ribbon “Committee to Restore Constitutional Order”; however, only if Tea Party candidates, aka conservatives and/or “republicans”, are able to effectively assert their influence in the new Congress can the long, arduous struggle to restore constitutional order begin in earnest. And at this juncture whether or not patriots can ever again hold sway in Congress is, at best, doubtful.

 

Is it too late? Probably. And if that’s the case, then the several States, at the insistence of their aroused citizenry, should re-examine their unhealthy association with an increasingly corrosive central government no longer faithful to the Constitution or to the People, the creators of this republic. In faithful pursuit of constitutional order, those States must understand that they are duty-bound to strike out on their own, either unilaterally or in union with like-minded sister States.

 

Thus, the burning question for me is this: no matter the terrible price one must pay, should a patriot who values his liberty continue to routinely submit to the self-destructive, albeit high-sounding, Lincolnesque notion of “indivisible unity”? Not no. But, Hell no!

Unless constitutional order is restored, I dare say that disunion will, of necessity, inevitably follow. And given the chasmic ideological divide existing in the country, I really don't believe disunion is that far off.

 

“I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive; most bad government has grown out of too much government; the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” Thomas Jefferson

 

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the cause which impel them to the separation.” (Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776)

[Rich P]

I led a crime watch in the 90's and was amazed at what could be accomplished with everyone being on the same page about a goal. I look at the youth and immigration both legal and illegal and I have little hope of that happening, we will see.

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

Several things have to happen first, We the People have to show an ability to gel and act as one. THEN we shall see.

[Rich P]

Yes in my opinion it is too late.