A brief thought about current events.
There is a prevalent argument that we should consider.
It is very disingenuous for the Democrats in the Congress to keep harping about George Bush being the cause of all the maladies that are currently befalling us. It is particularly discouraging to those of us that value freedom to be painted with the brush, “Bush did it” and, by that implication, “you were pro-Bush.” Most “keepers of the republic” were appalled by much of what Bush did and are close to terrified by what Obama is doing. But both of them were (are) just administrating the laws that Congress passes.
First of all, I was there when we went into the Iraqi war, where were you? George Bush told the Congress that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction.” He then showed them the evidence that he had. After their review of the evidence, Congress voted to attack Saddam, with Hillary and most of the Democrats supporting the resolution. Apparently Congress was just as apprehensive as the President … and just as culpable for what followed.
As a matter of fact, under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war. And the Congress has the purse-strings. With no appropriation, there is no money; with no money, no war (or as we euphemistically now call it “police action” or some other banality.)
Theoretically, for instance, a vote in the Congress of 218 to 217 in the House and 50 to 50 in the Senate, with the Vice President breaking the tie, could commit our entire nation to nuclear war. That result, obviously supported by only half the populace, could easily kill half or more of us. Majority rule is not always “just” nor is it necessarily correct.
We must re-study our Constitution so that we know who is to do what. We must understand that no President makes law, he or she only suggests and affirms or denies. The Congress is responsible for all laws, participation in war, participation in commerce and spending.
Our forefathers, to a man, feared pure democracy. We owe it to our posterity to understand why. We owe it to ourselves to understand why we have a democratic republic with all its checks and balances and how the tenents of the greatest government ever conceived are being inexorably eroded away.
You might want to do an Ephor-style expose on Executive Orders, how they’re carried out, and perhaps even a list of those that have been issued over the last twenty years. They’ve used increasingly as an end-around to the checks and balances, sometimes with disastrous result. If you’d like a good place to start, I’d suggest doing an Internet search on Executive Order 13166.
There is no constitutional basis for “executive orders”. They are tyrannical because, in the end, nobody has the power to actually stop the president for doing what he/she wants. In the final analysis, the best protection against abuses of power like these is the 2nd amendment. That is if you believe that our founding fathers considered everyone to be in the militia (which they were back then).