Mon, Aug 14 at 2:45 PM
In the contemporary period, the reputation of the Founders and Framers of the United States have certainly been battered by the misinformed and the mainstream chattering classes. But their wisdom echoes through the ideas and events over time. The great republican and second American President John Adams opined at the onset of the Revolutionary War that constitutional liberty lost is liberty never to be regained. How such words should strike the hearts of Americans living today. The government of the people by the people for the people has forgotten its calling and instead has responded to the siren calls of fanatical interest groups. In a grab for power, executive agencies have usurped the duties of Congress by writing rules and regulations which undermine the productive power of American industries, thereby eroding the standard of living of the people. Case in point, the EPA’s war against gasoline powered automobiles has enabled this nefarious agency to mandate the percentage of electric cars and trucks which will be available for purchase by 2032. Such an edict contradicts the wishes of the American people as witnessed by a number of current opinion polls. The implementation of such a rule radically alters American manufacturing, production and available consumer choices without any input from the American people. But this doesn’t matter to the nameless, faceless bureaucracy. What you have is a small cabal of bureaucratic elites who use the power of discretionary rule making to circumvent the wishes of the people to carry out the directives of the hysteria driven climate change agenda. Dire predictions from unserious people have littered the landscape for the past 50 years, from UN forecasts of rising sea levels by the early 21st century, to Professor Jim Hansen (not the Muppet guy) predicting parts of NYC would be underwater if CO2 levels doubled, to NBC News citing climatologists warnings that decisive action needed to be taken by 2016 to avert global catastrophe. Other crackpot ideas from Ted Turner, the former Prince Charles and Al Gore have all made contributions to the chorus of doom and gloom. But their assertions have turned out to be erroneous which should lead one to be wary of any future claims. If the predictions by the doom and gloomers have proven to be incorrect, why should we believe the proposed remedies have any validity. The rule changes proposed by the EPA ignore the great advancements of the automobile industry and disregard the wealth created by workers, suppliers and investors. Now don’t get me wrong. We all want clean air and clean water but what we don’t want is a fanatical unelected bureaucratic oligarchy making rules and regulations under the guise of legislation passed by Congress. According to the Constitution, it is up to an informed electorate to select representatives to make decisions in the name of their constituents. These representatives will then craft legislation which both bodies of the bicameral legislature, the House and Senate, must pass before the President signs the bill into law. What has happened is that bureaucracies in the executive branch have oftentimes taken vague legislation and from these imprecise laws hammered out concise, explicit dictates which satisfy the whims of the bureaucracy and the elites which support them. This is not the people ruling! This is fiat from above. What is the remedy for the people?! Federalist 47 argued the 3 branches of government must have sufficient strength given to each to support the separation of powers. Each branch would use its powers to check the power of the other to ensure a proper balance is maintained between the branches. The current dispersion of power has given the executive a preponderance of strength, therefore undermining the separation of powers and hence a republican form of government, meaning the rule by the people. Essentially, the executive branch has absconded the legislative powers of Congress through its bureaucratic rule making abilities giving the executive branch the powers to both write and enforce laws. Now it is the task of Congress to reclaim its powers and challenge the bureaucracy on constitutional grounds. If each draconian regulation must be challenged in court as an example of executive overreach, so be it. If Congress needs to defund these executive agencies, so be it. This should be one of the great issues of our time when true representatives of the people stand up and demand that Congress should be heard. Unfortunately, too many members are compliant, fearful to stand with the constitution because of the worry powerful interest groups will support candidates who seek the status quo. These representatives fear they will then lose election and hence the power and privilege which they have enjoyed at the expense of the people. If this is the nature of our representatives, then the prophecy of John Adams will hold true and this liberty will disappear into the dustbin of history.
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