Curmudgeon With A Gun: The American dictatorship: "An amazing thing has happened. I'm not certain when this took place, and it remains to be seen if it will be challenged, but it appears we have completely ceased to be a Republic or even a functional Democracy. We are now a full-fledged dictatorship."
Read the whole thing. Curmudgeon thinks we've crossed the line. Your thoughts?
Psalm 22:27-28: “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's, and he ruleth among the nations.”
1 comment:
humbug! Whatever comment approval setup is at Mr. Curmudgeon's place hates by browser. So I'll reply here
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... I don't *think* I can agree, though I'm willing to be convinced.
Specifically -
(1). The Atty General is an Executive Office, is it not? Ergo under the nominal direction of the executive.
(2). I would not only expect, I would hope that any branch would take the Constitutionality of a law into account when enforcing it.
To put the shoe on the other foot - let's assume a blatantly unconstitutional law - one we'll make extreme for the same of argument - say "no one shall print, broadcast, or otherwise publish anything derogatory of the Congress of the US."
Or perhaps closer to home "Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in."
Would I expect the President to refuse to sign it, on Constitutional grounds?
I would. (In fact, I recall a great deal of consternation when Bush I said something to the effect of "I think this is unconstitutional, but I'll sign it anyhow.")
If a previous POTUS had signed it, would I expect a new one to refuse to enforce it?
I would - absent a direct decision and order from the Judicial.
(For a parallel, I recall how each soldier is required to refuse to execute an illegal order)
Finally, from a pragmatic point of view, I think the risks of leaving the de facto pocket veto "I don't think doing X is Constitutional" at each point in the process is likely less damaging in the long term than insisting on a single point of decision.
It's not without its downsides, but following the general principle the more hurdles in the path of a law, the safer we remain - I think this approach errs on the side of caution.
All of which is the long way of saying that while I think Obama is a Constitutional scholar in the same sense a jailhouse lawyer is a student of the criminal code (ie - to get around it), and I'm certainly no fan -
- of all the things to call him "Caesar" over (and I'm sure I could come up with a list) I don't think this is the hill to make the fight on.
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