End of Checks and Balances

We have a unique country, one in which the government’s powers are divided. It is often difficult for the government to do some things because a judge may call it “Unconstitutional”, or a president might “Veto” a law congress wants, or Congress may not create a law the President wants, or the Senate may not “Consent” to a Treaty the president signed, etc. The idea being that our forefathers assumed that people are not “good,” that power corrupts, and that the best way to insure liberty for all people was to hamstring the government. This severely limited how the government could control individuals. Ruling elite, whether kings, or dictators, or presidents, or congressmen, have for two centuries chaffed at these severe limitations. It seems that the idea that a 20 year congressman can get kicked out by the voters if he votes for a law that the ruling elite think is best but the people don’t want is very frustrating.

It’s taken a couple centuries to corrupt the system that created the greatest, most charitable, strongest, society the world has ever known. This society where even the poor have indoor plumbing, TV’s, private cars, and an obesity problem, has one unforgivable trait, the “rulers” are limited, can’t rule by fiat, and have been held accountable to the same laws as the common man. The Rule of Law, and Checks and Balances, have made it very difficult for the ruling elite, but through bureaucratic regulations, and the power to ignore the rule of law, we are once again heading towards rule over the many by a few who control the force of government.

Ignoring several laws meant to protect the rights of individual citizens, in the name of “safety”, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) has filed for an emergency regulation requiring gun dealers to keep track of their customers and file special reports to ATF whenever a customer purchases more than one semi-automatic rifle within any 5-day period. This is gun registration pure and simple, is unconstitutional and violates statutory prohibition against firearms registration schemes.

The Firearm Owners' Protection Act (FOPA) as codified in Federal Law 18 U.S.C. 926 (2) (a)) states:

No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or disposition be established.

This new regulation (not law) was obviously filed as an "emergency" simply as a means of bypassing Congress. The Obama administration knows that it could not pass such laws, so to bypass our system of Checks and Balances, Obama’s administration is using a bureaucratic fiat to create a “regulation” that avoids all that messy and controversial dealings with congress. This is the same way dictators create laws, not a democratic republic.

Remember all the hoopla about government “death panels?” The uproar resulted in Democrats dropping “end of life counseling” from the monumental health care overhaul last year. The Obama administration still wants to counsel grandma to “take a pill” rather than get that expensive life extending surgery, but knows that getting it put into law won’t happen. Obama, failing to have the law he wanted, simply created it by fiat. New Medicare regulations issued December 3, include "voluntary advance care planning" that covers annual checkups, known as wellness visits. It goes into effect Jan. 1. Again the Ruling Elite have created a bureaucratic “regulation” to bypass congress and create something that the people through our system of Checks and Balances, was rejected.

Our government has become too big and too powerful, and is now doing everything it can to bypass the will of the people. Consider the EPA, which is passing regulations far beyond what congress authorized, and is instituting provisions of both the rejected “Cap and Trade” legislation, and Kyoto protocols, despite Congress rejecting Cap and Trade legislation, and the Senate rejecting the Kyoto treaty. The people pressured their elected representatives to do their bidding, which the elites wanted. It is obvious that the ruling elite, are going to bypass representatives who are held accountable by the people to institute laws that they think is best regardless of the will of the people.

The “Rule of Law” is the idea that the law should be applied to everybody equally, and that no person is above the law. Rule of law stands in contrast to the idea that the sovereign is above the law, thus even the president can be held accountable for breaking the law. Obama care had provisions that made mini-medical plans illegal. This was going to effect a significant number of Obama’s supporters. So to keep his supporters happy, Obama has suspended the “Rule of Law” and exempted several hundred companies from having to follow the law. Most of these companies are labor unions. Obama like a King or Potentate of old now picks and chooses who must follow the law, and who is given special privileges not afforded to the general public. Why should the people follow or respect the laws from Washington, if some can bribe, or otherwise gain favor of the ruling elite and be granted exemptions?

Thus we are witnessing the end to both the Rule of Law and the system of Checks and Balances, and the dissent into tyranny for America.