One challenge currently facing American society today is the expansion of Federal and Presidential power. It is an issue because it threatens individual liberty and rights, which are protected when the Federal government has less power and has to “compete “with state Governments. Another Reason that it is an Issue is that when the Federal Government expands so much that it goes against Natural Law (Law that is higher than manmade law, including God’s Law and Scientific/Mathematical Laws) it brings decline to the Nation.
According to Fredric Bastiat’s famous essay The Law, this overreach brings about the
following consequences: People won’t truly respect the Law because it privileges
the federal or central government above the rights of the individual. This
leads to less respect for the Government and more lawbreaking. Which in turn leads
people to have less respect for each other and to believe that everyone is
dishonest and that they in turn should act dishonestly. Ultimately this leads
to widespread distrust and a decrease of freedom, equality and opportunity.
The United States Constitution seeks to address this issue
by limiting the power of the Federal Government and the President. It limits the power of the Federal Government
in multiple ways. One of the biggest is the 10th amendment, which
states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people.”
This means that the Federal government only has the powers
delegated to it in the constitution and all other powers (as long as they
aren’t prohibited to the states, like ex post facto laws or bills of attainder)
go to the states.
Some examples are education, setting up schools and
determining if abortion and LBGT marriage is allowed or prohibited. The U.S. Constitution also limits the Federal
government by dividing the powers of government among the 3 Branches of the
Federal Government:
·
The Legislative Branch which is further divided
into the Senate and the House of Representatives, who each have unique powers
like the origination of all revenue bills in the House and the sole power to
judge impeachment cases for the Senate. But overall the Congress deals with the
lawmaking of the country.
·
The Executive Branch: the President and The VP which are elected by
another body, the Electoral College which in turn was instituted to protect the
office of the president from the majority “mob” rule of the people. The
Executive branch deals with enforcing the Law and it has a huge Federal
Bureaucracy to help do this.
·
The Judicial Branch which has the power of
interpreting the law of the Land, and
deciding disputes.
The three branches have checks and balances procedures and
powers that enable each branch to limit the power of the other branches and
force a compromise between all three. This prevents any one branch from getting
too much power, and prevents tyranny.
Congress, for example, is given the power to impeach and
convict Federal officials including Judges, SCOTUS Justices and the President
and VP. The President has the power to veto a law passed by Congress. Congress
on the other hand can override a presidential veto with a 2/3 vote. Congress
has the power to declare war, but the President has the power to command the
Military. The President nominates Supreme Court Justices and Congress holds the
power to confirm or reject them.
Presently however, the Federal Government has overstepped
these limits in multiple instances and thus it has gone against the Law of the
Land, and Natural Law. Some of the
instances include the Roe v. Wade and Oberfell v. Hodge SCOTUS Cases where the
SCOTUS went against the the 10th amendment of Constitution and Natural Law or
the idea that “all powers delegated to the government must be entrusted to the
lowest level of government that can effectively accomplish the desired goal*”
and the commandments of God in the Family
a Proclamation to the World.
The Federal Government has also expanded its power by
creating laws to “legally plundering” its people with the redistribution of
wealth. This also goes against Natural Law
The Powers of the POTUS and the oval office are also
expanding more than the Constitution gave it power to do as well. The
Constitution essentially gave the President 12 powers in Article II-2 & 3:
**
1.
He is the commander in chief of the
military.
2.
He may require written opinions from anyone
serving as head of a department in the executive branch.
3.
He can grant reprieves and pardons.
4.
He can make treaties, as long as
two-thirds of the Senate agrees.
5.
He can appoint ambassadors, justices of
the Supreme Court, and other federal officials, as long as two-thirds of the
Senate agrees.
6.
He can fill vacancies in federal
offices during recesses of the Senate.
7.
He shall from time to time give a
report and recommendations to the Congress.
8.
He may, in a time of extraordinary
circumstances, convene Congress and/or adjourn it (this was defined by the
framers mainly as a time when a declaration of war was needed).
9.
He can meet with foreign diplomats.
10.
He shall take care that all the laws
are faithfully executed.
11.
He shall commission all the officers of
the United States.
12.
He can veto Laws passed by Congress
(Article I-7)
Anything more than this goes against
the Constitution and takes away the freedom of people.
Examples include the Affordable Care
Act and Obamacare which force people to get insurance or pay a fee. The refusal
of giving a treaty by the President to the Senate to be Ratified also goes
against the Constitution (Article II Section II: “He shall have Power,
by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided
two thirds of the Senators present concur“). This has happened the Framework
Convention on Climate Change Agreement***. Also an Executive order that forces
a state to stop transporting Illegal Immigrants out of the Country is unconstitutional
because the President can’t make laws, he can only enforce them.
Another Example of the President going against
the constitution is the Executive Order issued by Franklin Delano Roosevelt
that transported Japanese-Americans to Internment Camps. This affected tens of
thousands completely innocent people and had nothing to do with the Japanese
Fascists attacks on the U.S.A.
One final example of bending the constitution is
the use of Executive Agreements between the POTUS and a head of a foreign
country. Unlike treaties these are not sent to the Senate for ratification,
these are not binding to future Presidents and Presidents tend to use them a
lot to bypass Congress. They are
Unconstitutional however and are another example of Presidential expansion of power
from that which is in the Constitution.
As explained in this quote by Dallin H. Oaks “For checks and balances to work properly, and
for the fundamental principle of separation of powers to be honored and perform
its proper function, each branch of government must fulfill its duties fully,
and each must refrain from attempting to exercise the functions of the others”
the Judicial Branch and the Executive Branch should not make Laws just as the
Legislative Branch should not enforce the Law they made.
It may seem that the Federal Government is still expanding
notwithstanding the Constitution’s limits made to prevent tyranny, but the
Framers instituted a deciding check on Federal power. This limit is the power
of the people to elect their representatives, which forces the Federal
Government to follow public opinion closely enough to stay in office.
So to fix these problems that lead to Decline we
need to educate the People that we need to follow our constitution and Natural
law and so they can apply the necessary public pressure to the Government to
follow these things.
*We Hold These Truths
to be Self-Evident Oliver DeMille
**http://oliverdemille.com/2016/02/parties-cant-cooperate/
*** http://dailysignal.com/2016/04/22/obamas-violating-the-constitution-by-not-submitting-climate-treaty-to-senate/
I also did a Common-Sense discussion board Response here it is:
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in the 1776 to argue the case for independence from Britain to the American People. It appealed to the common people and not just the elites because
Paine argues that the King of England and Parliament had used their power oppressively against the people of America and that they have the right to discard them: In the Introduction on page 1: “a long and violent abuse of power…the King of England… Parliament…as the good people of this country [America] are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either”. This appealed to the common people and not just the elites because they, the common people, had been oppressed by the abuse of the King’s and Parliament’s power, and they liked the idea that they had the right to reject them, because that would ease their suffering.
The common people didn’t want another mortal person to be placed above them with power to control and oppress them without their consent, it being against their unalienable right to liberty. That is what a monarch is and there are multiple instances in Common Sensewhere Paine writes against monarchy and the king such as:
"the king…he hath shewn himself such an inveterate enemy to liberty”.
and
“ the crown…hath…eaten out the virtue of the house of commons…it is the Republican and not the Monarchical part of the Constitution of England which Englishmen glory in…choosing a House of Commons …when Republican virtues fail, slavery ensues...the Crown hath engrossed the Commons.”
Since the common people like choosing a House of Commons and the House of Commons itself, and the king had corrupted the House of Commons this frustrated the common people.
Paine argues the case for actual, equal and large representation: “the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors , the necessity of a large and equal representation ”.
The common people preferred actual representation (representatives serving the interest of the specific people who elected them, and not necessarily the common good of the whole nation), because it was what most colonists believed in.
Common people in the border country/frontier especially liked equal representation, where each district/area gets the same number of electors compared to the population of the area (like if the ratio was 1 representative to 2,000 people, then that ratio is equal for all districts), because they had a larger population than many eastern places in the colony but got a lower number of representatives in the colony legislature.
Common Sense also goes against hereditary succession which the common people didn’t like because, among other reasons, it gave them less opportunity than “high-born” people and maintained a caste system with less economic, social and political mobility.
The common people of the colonies wanted to prosper in commerce and economy, and Paine makes the case that if they stayed part of the British Empire, then they would prosper less in economy and commerce than they could have if they had become an independent separate people. Independence would allow them to conduct commerce with other nations besides the British Empire and they would not be limited in their economy by a king who wanted them to prosper less.
Common Sense appealed to the common people of the colonies through many means and it convinced countless colonists that separation of the colonies from Britain into a separate and independent Nation was necessary and expedient for them arguing that cause of America is the cause of all mankind.
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